Black Meteors to kick off U-23 AFCON campaign against Cameroon tonight

The Black Meteors will kick off their U-23 African Cup of Nations campaign tonight against Cameroon in Cairo, Egypt.

The players have been in good spirits all week ahead of the match.

This goodwill has spread to social media where the #BringBackTheLove hashtag, an initiative by the GFA to improve public support for the national teams, is gaining lots of traction.

 The team arrived in Cairo on Tuesday but didn’t wait too long before getting down to business on the pitch.

They have been drawn in Group A along with hosts Egypt, Mali and Cameroon at the tournament.

The tournament serves as a qualifier for next year’s Olympic Games, with the top three sides booking a place in Tokyo.

The Meteors will be hoping to qualify for the Olympics for the first time since 2004.

Head coach, Ibrahim Tanko said the players and his technical team are determined to make it to the Olympics

“We have only one mindset and that is making it to the Olympics. The players and the technical team know what lies ahead of us.

We are ready and we will go there to prepare. We have a few days to polish what we are doing before playing the first match. We have to win every match if we are going to be successful and that is our mindset as we go to Egypt.”

Captain, Yaw Yeboah also believes the players are ready for the AFCON having seen the way they played at their last tournament.

“For me, it has been great meeting the boys again and I was happy to see them working hard. In our last pre-tournament match in Ghana, I saw that we played well and we have taken a lot of confidence from that.

We feel very confident and I can say that we are ready for the tournament.”

The match kicks off at the Cairo International Stadium at 8:00pm.