Egypt's U-20 national team has finished their preparations for a tough, crucial game against Ghana in the African Youth Championship (AYC) final on Saturday in Algeria. Egypt's technical coach, Rabie Yassine, is optimistic ahead of the final, describing the game as an "important and great challenge", Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported. “We are ready for this tough, crucial game. We know how difficult it is, but it will be a big game worthy of the two teams," Yassine said after the last training session of the Young Pharaohs in the city of Wahran in Algeria. "Twenty-one players were involved at the training session that lasted for 60 minutes during which few tactical stretches were made," Yassine explained. Egypt reached the U-20 African Championship final following a 2-0 win over Nigeria on Tuesday, thanks to striker Mohamed Abdel Moneim (Kahraba) double. Yassine added that he has confidence in the players to put on a good show. "I have full trust in the players' potential to handle this big clash." Yassine pointed out that the starting line-up against Ghana will see a slight change compared to the squad that played against Nigeria at the semi-final. He added that he watched the Mali and Ghana match in the semi-final of the tournament, which was held on Tuesday. The Young Pharaohs' coaching staff has been watching many videos of the opponent to try and gauge their strong and weak points. Yassine asked his players to forget the Ghana match that was held at the opening of the tournament that ended in a 2-1 victory for the Egyptian team, thanks to goals from Mahmoud Hamed and Saleh Gomaa. "I warned the players that the final is different from previous games since ambitions are different, especially after the teams qualify for the final and the championship turned out to be very close for the two sides," the Young Pharaohs coach underlined. "Consequently we must play very seriously during the game, as the Ghanaian team performance appeared to be increased from one match to another, so we must be cautious," he added. The stoppage of the Egyptian Premier League helps me a lot to reunite the youth team players and learn their weak and strong points, so I may recruit them for the right places that benefit the team, the talented coach said. "Ghana is a great and classy team, that has a good coach and talented players, but we want to achieve the championship trophy," Yassine added.
