Ghana senior national team coach Charles Akonnor will call FIVE players from the Black Satellites squad that won the recent U20 AFCON, emulating the strategy that brought the country success at the 2010 World Cup, Ghanasoccernet.com can exclusively reveal.
The five players being considered for the Black Stars Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers are the tournament’s best player and playmaker Abdul Fatawu Issahaku, goalkeeper Danlad Ibrahim, free-kick specialist, Percious Boah, Samuel Abbey-Ashie Quaye and Philemon Baffour - an internal discussion of the Ghana coaching staff has revealed.
The Black Stars coach will invite the country’s best players from the Africa U20 championship in Mauritania as he seeks to inject some youth into the Black Stars, augmenting the team with talented players while providing the much-needed competition in some positions in the squad.
Among the four players to be called is AFCON U20 best player and prodigy Abdul Fatawu Issahaku whose immense talents will provide a formidable option to the current best players in the team like Andre Ayew, Thomas Partey, Jordan Ayew or Mohammed Kudus.
Tournament best goalkeeper Danlad Ibrahim is also in line for a call-up thanks to his heroics at the competition and the need to provide decent and reliable back-up to goalkeepers currently in the Black Stars squad. With first choice goalkeeper Ofori injured Ibrahim's call-up has already filled the discussions of the Black Stars coaching staff.
Young Dead ball specialist Percious Boah, who scored some amazing goals for the Black Satellites from free-kicks sometimes from 40 yards at the WAFU Championship and the U20 AFCON, is also being considered to help the Black Stars to be clinical from set pieces.
With the Black Stars struggling for options at the right-back position, impressive Philemon Baffour is also being line-up as a good option for injury prone England-based defender Andy Yiadom.
Accra Great Olympics player Samuel Abbey-Ashie Quaye is also being lined up to understudy fit-gain experienced Baba Rahman and Gideon Mensah with home-based defender Christopher Nettey unable to take his chance to wrestle the position from the foreign-based duo.
The players will be much needed particularly at a time when European clubs are reluctant to release their players to come to Africa for the AFCON qualifiers because of the growing cases of coronavirus in South Africa where the Black Stars will play Bafana Bafana.
But it also falls in line with the strategy of promoting the players to the national team similar to what was done in 2010 when several youngsters the country’s U20 World Cup winning team were promoted to help the Black Stars reach the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup and the final of the Africa Cup of Nations
Most of the players from that 2009 Ghana U20 squad like captain Andre Ayew, Jonathan Mensah, Emmanuel Agyemang Badu and Samuel Inkoom went on to become great players for the Black Stars.
Coach Akonnor is keen to emulate that strategy by giving early confidence to the players who excelled at the U20 Championship in Mauritania to go to become future top players for the Black Stars.