Black Meteors coach Ibrahim Tanko to drop 11 local-based players

With less than a week to the Africa U-23 cup of nations qualifiers, Ghana’s male Olympic team have been preparing for close to two weeks ahead of the double header with their Gabonese counterparts.

Initially, 24 home based players were invited to start preparations but the invitation of eleven foreign based players by Coach Ibrahim Tanko and his technical team means there will no longer be space for 11 other local based players who have been in camp for the past weeks.

In an interview with the media after one of the team’s training sessions at the Legon Presec park, the former Cameroon Assistant coach hinted that 13 local players would be chosen to blend with the foreign based players for the double header.

“We will select 13 local based players to join the eleven foreign based players invited for the game against Gabon” Tanko told the media.

This means that eleven local based players will be dropped from the team, with the foreign based players arriving on Monday.

Here is the full list of foreign based players invited:

Benjamin Tetteh (Sparta Prague, Czech Republic), Isaac Twum (IK Start, Norway), Kwabena Owusu (Salamanca CF, Spain), Musah Nuhu (FC St. Gallen, Switzerland), Majeed Ashimeru (FC St. Gallen, Switzerland), Kingsley Fobi (UD Ibiza, Spain), Yaw Yeboah (CD Numancia, Spain), Joseph Paintsil (KRC Genk, Belgium), Gideon Mensah (SK Sturm Graz, Austria) and Osman Bukari (AS Trencin, Slovakia),Benard Tekpetey(Paderbon,Germany)

The 2019 U-23 Africa Nations Cup will be staged between 5-22 November 2019 in Egypt,the tournament will also determine which three African teams will compete at the 2020 Summer Olympics men’s football tournament in Tokyo 2020.