{"id":18068,"date":"2011-01-05T15:06:22","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T20:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=18068"},"modified":"2011-01-05T15:06:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T20:06:22","slug":"defending-champs-in-sizzling-group-for-libya-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=18068","title":{"rendered":"Defending champs in sizzling group for Libya 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Ghanaians who held on with 10 men to beat Brazil in a penalty shootout to become the first African team to win the Under-20 World Cup in Cairo Egypt will face stiff competition this time to defend their title as they face Nigeria, Cameroon and The Gambia in group B of the upcoming African U-20 championship in March.\u00a0 <em>(Photo:\u00a0 Black Satellites)<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The hosts\u2019 nations Libya are in Group A, along with Mali, Egypt and Lesotho. The tournament takes place from 18 March to 1 April and the four semi-finalists will qualify for the U20 World Cup later in 2011.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The World champions the Black Satellites are determined to hold on to both crowns.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s very important for us,&#8221; coach Orlando Wellington told journalists before the draw was made.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a big challenge for me and the players &#8211; we have to work very hard to go to the World Cup. It&#8217;s not easy but financially and physically we are prepared.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Wellington insisted that his crop of youngsters have even more potential than their double-winning predecessors.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;When you talk about technique this team is far ahead of the past champions,&#8221; he told the BBC&#8217;s African sports programme Fast Track.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;These people are tactically and technically [more] sound than the other team. The others play more aggressively but this team can play very good football.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The teams in each group will engage each other on round-robin basis with the group winners and runners-up advancing to the last four and eventually the final. The semi finalists will represent the continent at the FIFA U-20 World Cup slated for Colombia later next year.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><strong><em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghanaians who held on with 10 men to beat Brazil in a penalty shootout to become the first African team to win the Under-20 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[824,1],"tags":[2370,6218],"class_list":["post-18068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-african-football","tag-black-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}