In this segment, we take a look at Guinea’s U-17 team and guide you through their journey to the world cup, highlighting their achievements, key players, coach and much more.
INTRODUCTION
Country: Guinea
Confederation: CAF (Africa)Nicknames: Le Syli Cadet (Junior National Elephants)Coach: Souleymane Camara
PAST RECORDS AND LAURELS
The Guinean youth side has made four appearances at the Under-17 World Cup. The side participated in their first FIFA U-17 World Cup in the year 1985, having grabbed a fourth position finish which is their best till date. In the 1989 U-17 World Cup in Scotland, the Junior National EElephants missed out on a place in the second round despite finishing the group phase unbeaten with three draws. Six years later, the team from the CAF participated in the 1995 U-17 World Cup at Ecuador where they failed to advance from their pool as they fell prey to Argentina and Costa Rica. The Guineans suffered another first-round exit in 2015 in Chile where they drew 1-1 with England and lost 3-1 and 1-0 to Brazil and Korea Republic, respectively.
Apart from their record at the biggest event of youth football, Guinea have had a decent history of results at Africa U-17 Cup of Nations. The side has successfully ended on the third spot thrice (1995, 2015 and 2017) in their six appearances in the competition.
ROAD TO U-17 WORLD CUP
In the 2017 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations held at Gabon, Guinea was drawn against Morocco in the second round of qualifying where they came from 1-0 down in both legs before advancing on penalties on Moroccan soil. After surpassing the third round, they kicked off the continental finals in Gabon with a 5-1 victory over the host nation followed by a 1-1 draw with Cameroon and a goalless draw with Ghana. This secured them a place in the last four and also a berth in the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017. In the semi-finale, Guinea was beaten on penalties (2-0) by Ghana but went on to beat Niger 3-1 in third place play-off.
PREPARATIONS AHEAD OF THE MEGA-EVENT
Following their performance at Gabon’s 2017 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, the players were given a week’s holiday. After that, the young guns of Guinea took part in a month long training camp at Italy followed by another ten-day camp in Abu Dhabi.
TEAM COACH
Souleymane Camara a.k.a ‘Abedi’ is a former playmaker. Camara boasts an excellent reputation in Guinea, having enjoyed a long and successful career as a player-coach during which he won two national cups with FC Sequence. The former coach of Guinean first division side Satellite FC is a young gaffer who aims to make it to at least the second round with his young guns who are still developing.
