Black starlet versatile, Edmund Arko Mensah has declared that the team is fired up for the return encounter against ‘Les Elephanteaux’ of Ivory Coast in fortnight time.
The 15-year old central midfielder, who can also operate as a left full back was very defiant of the team qualifying to the 2017 African Youth tournament in Madagascar after defeating their Ivorian counterparts 3-1 in the first leg of the qualifiers at the Cape Coast sports stadium.
However, having conceded an away goal which could prove crucial in the team’s safe passage ahead of the second leg, Edmund Mensah believes they have sufficient fire power to sail through to the tournament.
In an exclusive interview with Football Ghana.com after the team’s win, Edmund Mensah said,” I’ll first and foremost give thanks to God for this great victory. We fought and beat a well organized team today, we cannot jubilate enough because of the second leg. We need to regroup and see how best we can prepare to go past this hurdle without any blemish.”
“I know with the away goal they scored people will think they’ll have the edge over us going into the second leg, but I believe with the agony we went through at the hands Burkina Faso in the last time, has thought us much and hopefully we can use that to go past this round.”
“After we scored the first two goals, we wanted to kill the game off with more goals but when they scored their goal, they deployed a defensive game which made things difficult for us because we know in these kind of games goals count a lot, however I feel with the 3-1 scoreline we still have the advantage ahead of the match in two weeks time.”
The Black starlets will be eager to it to the 12th Edition of the biennial tournament in Madagascar after they were disqualified for fielding an over aged player against Cameroon in the qualifies to Niger 2015.
By: Reuben Obodai
