U-23 AFCON: Ten-man Ghana hold Egypt in trial game

The Black Meteors (Male U-23) played out a 1-1 stalemate with Egypt in a test encounter at the Alexandria Stadium on Thursday, June 15.

Ghana took a slow start to the game and nearly gave away a goal in the opening five minutes when Nathaniel Adjei fouled an opposition player at the edge of the box.

The Black Meteors opened the scoring in the 10th minute, Daniel Afriyie Barnieh calmly converted a spot-kick that came about after Abdul Fatawu Issahaku was brought down inside the penalty box.

In the 20th minute, Egypt was awarded a way back into the game from a spot-kick, Ibrahim Adel stepped up and took the kick but goalkeeper Ibrahim Danlad saved his effort.

Twenty minutes later, Ibrahim Adel made amends for his penalty miss, scoring to make it 1-1. Egypt capitalized on a blunder by Ibrahim Danlad.

On the stroke of halftime, Ghana was reduced to 10 players, Zubairu Ibrahim was shown a second yellow card after a poor challenge.

In the second half, Egypt pushed for the second but Ghana stayed resilient at the back to draw 1-1. Salim Adams, Sylvester Simba, Godwin Bentil, Ibrahim Hafiz, Augustine Randolf and Wisdom Yegbe were brought on.

Ghana will continue their stay in Alexandra and will be involved in another friendly game before jetting off to Morocco for the U-23 AFCON to be played from Saturday, June 24 to Saturday, July 8, 2023.

Ghana is paired with host Morocco, Guinea and Congo in Group A of the competition which will serve as qualifiers for the next Olympics in Paris, France.

The Black Meteors will kick off their campaign against Congo on Saturday, June 24, before playing Morocco on Tuesday, June 27 and then Guinea on Friday, June 30.

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 playoff to decide the final slot at the Olympics.