Posted by Head Coach of the Black Meteors, Ibrabim Tanko is confident of his side securing a place at the 2024 Olympics in Paris following the draw for the TotalEnergies U23 Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2023.
The Ghana U-23 team was pitted in Group A alongside host nation Morroco, Congo and Guinea, a draw Ibrabim Tanko describes as a tough one.
“It’s not going to be easy (playing) against a host nation…they have their support behind them but we will do our best to stand them and not spoil our chance to go to the Olympics”, he told FMIG in an exclusive interview.
Coach Ibrahim Tanko was in charge of the Black Meteors the last time the team played in the U-23 AFCON tournament in Egypt 2019, failing to secure a place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after losing to South Africa on penalty shootout in the 3rd place match, a situation he says was due to the refusal of clubs to release key members of his team.
“A lot of the players who played the qualifiers could not come for the main tournament, and it is one of the things that limited our chance of qualifying”, he told FMIG.
He continued: “But I think this time we are lucky, and I’m sure we are going to have a strong team.
Ghana will kickoff their campaign against Congo on Saturday, June 24, before playing Morocco on Tuesday, June 27 and then Guinea on Friday, June 30.
The quadrennial African football tournament which will serve as qualifiers for the 2024 Olympic Games to be held in Paris will be played from Saturday, June 24 to Saturday, July 8, 2023.
The top three teams from the competition will automatically qualify to the Olympics, while the 4th-placed team will play against a team from Asia in a playoffs to decide the final slot at the Olympics.