RWANDA

The weather, high altitude of 1480 meters above sea level as well as home suport will be in favour of the host team. Yet, they will be up against it in a group that boasts 1995 champions Cameroon, two-time winners Ghana and Mali, who are known to have paraded useful youth teams over the years.

The confidence of the Junior Wasps must be boosted by the fact that the last tournament hosts, Congo Brazzaville, emerged victorious despite not making any impact at this level previously.

Players to watch include APR trio of Haruna Niyonzima, Elias Uzamukunda, Jean Claude Iranzi and Atraco custodian.

However, Rwanda has added something to their game during their three week training camp in North Africa and will provide a solid test than expected.

CAMEROON Two years ago, the Junior Lions failed to go past the first round of the competition. However, they have since made up for this by outscoring defending champions Congo Brazzaville in the qualifying series for this year's tournament. This did not come easy as they were held to a scoreless draw at home in the first leg before they fought back to win in Brazzaville 2-0.

The sprinkling of overseas-based players includes Asong Joseph Leke from Espanyol of Spain, Bosso Aristide Cedric of Anderlecht and Nkoum Victor Cedric, who is at Paris Saint-Germain.

In one of their warm-up matches against a local Kenya team, they won 3-0. They are handled by Alain Wabo alias Capello after the England manager.

MALI Mali’s Under-20 team, coached by Djibril Dramé, prepared for competition spent nearly two weeks in neighboring Burundi.

They have however suffered a huge impede after they lost, through injury, skipper Bassirou Dembele, who had finished signing for Paris Saint-Germain from the famous Salif Keita academy.

Other notable absentees are central defender Kassim Doumbia, who moved to Belgium, striker Cheibane Traore of CSD Koulikoro as well as CSK midfielder Oumar Kone along with team-mate Adama Kamissoko.

ASKO Bamako provides the bulk of the squad - Ibrahim Bosso Mounkoro, Adama Keita, Ousmane Diarra, Drissa Fane, and Cheick Oumar Ballo. Foreign-based players include Samba Sow (RC Lens, France), Boubacar Bangoura (Esperance Tunis), Yacouba Diarra (Etoile, Tunisia), Adama Traore (PSG, France), Moussa Guindo (ASEC, Ivory Coast) and Souleymane Diabate (Jomo Cosmos, South Africa).

Mali’s best showing at the AYC was fourth place at the 1995 tournament hosted by Nigeria. Mali ousted Tunisia and Benin on her road to Rwanda.

Mali has proven a fine pedigree at youth level having finished third at the 1999 Fifa World Youth Championship in Nigeria with players like Barcelona’s Seydou Keita in their ranks.

GHANA The Black Satellites will rely on her players who participated in the country’s team to the 2007 Fifa Under-17 World Cup in Korea.

They will be missing two influential players as a result of injury Daniel Opare, who shone at the U-17 World Cup and is highly thought of at Spanish champions Real Madrid, and midfielder Rabiu Mohamed, who features in the Spanish second division with Xerez.

Black Satellites will be led by striker Eric Bekoe, who Ghana Premier league top scorer last season. The latter has joined Egyptian club Ismaily from Asante Kotoko.

The notable player is Ranford Osei who has can hardly miss any scoring opportunity on the goal. Osei hit a hat trick in Kenya recently where the Ghanaians have been putting final touches to their preparations under the watchful eyes of Coach Silas Tetteh.

Other players to look out for are Denmark-based Emmanuel Clottey and Bradley Hudson-Odoi from English club Fulham.

They ended Angola and Gambia’s campaign of reaching Rwanda finals in the qualifiers and their confidence is vast after they won the Wafu tournament in Delta state, Nigeria in December.