By
Emmanuel Asante Attakora, GNA
Accra, Nov. 12, GNA –
The National U23 team, the Black Meteors’ hope of picking one of the three
slots available to Africa for the upcoming summer Olympics Games is fizzling
out after a 3:2 defeat to Egypt in their second Group A game of the ongoing U23
African Tournament in Egypt.
The Meteors, who
played 1:1 against Cameroon in their first group game were hoping to get a good
results over Egypt who beat other Group A member Mali to top the group.
But the Black
Meteors, led by coach Ibrahim Tanko threw away the lead twice to lose 3-2 to
the Olympic Pharaohs at the Cairo International Stadium.
With just a point
out of two games, Ghana find itself in a difficult position to make the
semi-finals of the competition and possibly pick one of the available slots for
the tournament that serves as a qualifier for the Tokyo 2020 games in Japan.
Yaw Yeboah, captain
for Ghana put the team ahead from close range but Pharoahs striker Moustafa
equalised in the 17th minute.
Samuel Obeng put
Ghana ahead again in the early parts of the second half Ahmed Mohamed’s fine
after pouncing on a weak back pass from Egyptian centre-back Mohamed Abdelsalam
to make it 2:1.
Egypt improved their
game by piling pressure on Ghana in search of an equalizer but to no avail
until the 82nd minute, when Ramadan Ahmed Sobhi drew level for the
home side.
The Pharoahs kept on
the momentum, which yielded results as theÂ
host continued to pile pressure in the 88th minute, when
Rayan Yasser out-jumped the Ghana defence to head home the match winner to end
the game 3:2 in favour of the host.
Egypt with two wins
in Group A, tops with six points, followed by Cameroon on four points after
beating Mali, leaving Ghana and Mali on third and fourth on the log
respectively.
Ghana takes on Mali
in the final group game on Thursday in a bid to secure qualification for the
tournament they featured in since 2004, if Egypt is able to beat Cameroon
convincingly.
GNA
