Charles Sampson has disclosed that the absence of a strong transition pipeline from Ghana’s women’s U-17 setup significantly affected the current Black Princesses squad.

The coach revealed that the team had to rebuild largely from scratch ahead of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers.

“This current U-20 unfortunately didn’t have a good influx of players from the U-17 like it used to be,” Samson said.

According to him, the situation stemmed partly from disruptions around the women’s U-17 structure, leaving the technical team with limited experienced players.

“Almost 85 to 90 percent of the players had never had that sort of platform before,” he said.

Despite the challenge, Sampson praised his technical team for managing to mould the inexperienced squad into a competitive side capable of securing qualification to the World Cup in Poland.

My daughter thanked God when I stopped coaching her – Charles Sampson

The former Greece-based defender also lamented the lack of international friendly matches during preparations.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t get any international friendly games, which we wanted to help expose the players,”he stated.

Ghana eventually navigated a difficult qualifying campaign, overcoming stern resistance from several opponents, including Uganda.

Sampson, however, believes the difficult route has strengthened the team mentally ahead of the global tournament.

PAH/EB

Also watch as Athletes share experiences about the African Athletics Championships