Confident Mali face African rivals Gha in quarters

 By our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI, Oct 20: Last year runners up Mali will face Gha in a quarter fils tie of the U-17 World Cup at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium here on Saturday. The match will kick off at 5 PM.
A good contest is on the card as it will be the clash of two African teams.  African outfits are always domiting factors in the U-17 World Cup. The titles of last two editions were won by Nigeria and Mali were their opponent in 2015. On the other hand Gha already lifted the cup twice- 1991,1995. 
Mali, who were in Group ‘B’, did not have the best start in this competition. They lost to Paraguay 3-2 but thereafter they recovered well won their next two matches against Turkey (3-0) and New Zealand (3-1) before thrashing Iraq 5-1 in the pre quarters.
It was almost same story for Gha also. The side though topped Group A with wins against Colombia (1-0) and (India 4-0) but lost to USA 0-1. In the pre quarters they beat Niger 2-0.
Mali will go into the game with little advantage as the side beat Gha twice in their last two face to face encounters. The last time Mali won was nearly six months back in the U-17 African Cup. However Gha coach Samuel Paa Kwasi Fabin is not giving to much important on that result and said, “ My team is capable to win the title this time and  we are ready for it.  We will out to show that we are the best.” Mali have scored second highest goals (13) in the tourment after France who netted 14 times till pre-quarterfils.
The captain of the team Eric Ayiah already hogged the limelight in the competition scoring 5 goals from four games.  He would definitely be the player to watch in tomorrow’s game. Gha coach however little bit concern over the conversation rate of the team in the earlier games. Earlier he admitted that that the team had wasted too many opportunities.
Mali would be certainly high on confidence after winning the pre quarter fils 5-2 against Iraq. Although the defence of the team may not perform as per the expectation, already conceded 5 goals, but their attacking zone is doing exceptiolly well. Mali, who finished as second best team in the group stage, has the player like Lassa N Diya who can easily toyed with the opponent defence. Diya already scored five goals in the meet. 
Meanwhile rain may create problems to the soccer lovers. City witnessed rain almost entire part of the day and there are predictions of more rain tomorrow and if it happens tomorrow then turn out could be very low in the game..
However the coach of Mali Jos Kokou Komla is not too much worried about the local weather. In a media briefing he said,” We have played in this type of condition earlier. So it would not be a problem for us.”

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