Abdul Karim Zito
Ghana’s Black Satellites coach, Abdul Karim Zito, has stated that his team has come too close to clinching the WAFU B Cup of Nations in Benin.
A 5-3 penalty win over Niger in the semis handed the Black Satellites the final ticket which the coach had said he would employ every tactics to return home.
The win pits Ghana against Burkina Faso in the final this Sunday after the latter had thumped Cote d’Ivoire 4-1 in the second semi-final fixture last Tuesday.
Ghana’s qualification to final will also secure its qualification to next year’s Africa U-20 Cup of Nations tournament scheduled for Mauritania.
Zito told ‘SILVER FM’, “We came in for the qualification. After securing that, we are going to also fight for the cup.
“Personally, I am okay with the qualification. But if we are also able to win the cup, that will be great.”
And responding to what accounted for the successful spot kicks, he said, “Penalties have often times been Ghana’s bane. So as part of my training, penalties are practiced at the end of every session.
“We tried this severally before leaving Ghana for the tournament.
“The goalkeeper, Essu, who we introduced for Danlad (Ibrahim), is good at taking penalties and also his frame makes him a good option to scare opponents in shootout scenarios.
“So we always leave a change available for such an instance. It is something we practice at training and you can see that for once we were able to score all the kicks.
“We were repeating this all the time so we were certain of those who would take the kicks,” he said.
Both Ghana and its Burkinabe counterparts have secured a place in Mauritania next year along with Gambia, Uganda, Tanzania, Namibia and Mozambique who have so far qualified for the tournament.
On Saturday, Niger will play Cote d’Ivoire in the third place playoff.
By Kofi Owusu Aduonum