Burkina Faso became the second African team to qualify for the second round of the FIFA U-17 World Cup after others have fallen on the wayside. They resorted to the last gap breath to thrash Costa Rica 4-1 to book the knock out ticket.
The victory has given the team’s coach much joy following his decision to build an entirely new team with young players the nation will rely on to graduate into the senior team instead of working with over aged players.
Coach Rainer Willfeld revealed to africansportsdigest.com after the match that he went through a difficult moment building a new team when he took over.
According to the German, he could not afford to come to this championship with over aged players, who would not be of any good use to the national team at the end of the championship which is one of the primary aims of youth competition.
He stated: “When I was asked to take this team over, I gave different conditions and the first and most important was I don’t want to have any player who is to be eliminated by age. So the first step was to bring up a selection of 45 players and then 35 players to make the testing.”
“And we only took those players who are qualified after this testing because I don’t want to be a coach of over age players who will come to a tournament and people will tell you your players are too old.
“So we went to Paris to have examination for all players and unfortunately some of the good strikers were missing because they are too old but they showed up and had to leave because we can only play with those who are right now here because they are really qualified”.
Today he is the happiest man in the Championship because he is beginning to see the result of hard work and being truthful.
Zidane Zoungrana registered the first goal in the 12 minutes when he rounded up the defence before releasing a powerful shot into the net. The goal was the tonic needed to send the strikers on a mass attacking rampage as they pinned their opponents to their half of the field searching for more goals.
Although, Costa Rica tried to soak up the pressure, the Burkinabes determined to qualify push forward more and more. In the 38 minutes Abdoulaye Ibrango added his to end the half with two goals.
The second stanza was more alluring as the Africans tried to control the game which paid off in the 82nd minute as Louckmane Ouedraogo slammed home the third goal. Only for Costa Rica to pull one back through J. Golobio before the last straw from Bertrand Traore completed the whacking on the dot of 90 minutes.