Laryea Kingston hails technical team …over 5-1 mauling of Cote d’Ivoire in WAFU U-17 opener

Following the 5-1 win over Cote d’Ivo­ire in the opening game of the 2024 WAFU Zone B U-17 Championship, Black Starlets coach, Laryea Kingston, has praised his technical team for the feat.

The former national star, who is engaged in his first major assignment as a national team coach, believes his technical team was the reason why his side recorded the over­whelming victory over their opponents.

Addressing the media at the post-match press conference, Laryea revealed that he was convinced by his technical staff to keep to the system of play when he wanted to switch at a point.

“At a point in time, I wanted to change to a 3-4-3 system because we started with 4-3- 3 but when I discussed with my technical team, they told me to stick to the original plan because it was working.”

“We typically have two systems of play. In Russia, we played 4-3-3 against the hosts and 3-4-3 against Serbia in our second game. Most of the time, we deploy a plan based on what we know about the oppo­nent but we always stick to plan,” Laryea said.

“We watched their (Cote d’Ivoire) games against Argentina and France, and focused more on when they are on and off the ball. We did a bit of opponent analysis with the boys and it worked for us. I thank the tech­nical team and everyone who supported this cause,” he noted.

The team zoomed off to a brilliant start in the opening game of the 2024 WAFU Zone B U17 Championship with a brace from MVP Winner,Joseph Narbi, in the first half.

Godfred Sarpong, Harve Gbafa and Mark Kagawa, each registered a goal in the second half to crown a magnificent after­noon for Ghana.

The Black Starlets will take on their Beninois counterparts in their second group game of the tournament on Tuesday.

Ghana is now top of the table with 3 points, followed by Benin who are yet to play a game with the Ivorians at the bottom of the table. –GFA.org