Black Starlets Endure Grueling 20-Hour Road Journey to Burkina Faso.

ACCRA, Ghana — Ghana’s under-17 football team, Black Starlets, have safely arrived in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, after a long road journey covering more than 20 hours. The long journey has raised eyebrows from local stakeholders on issues relating to player welfare. The Black Starlets delegation crossed the border ahead of the highly anticipated WAFU Zone B U17 Championship kicking off on Saturday, October 10, 2026.

The team, under the tutelage of head coach Kasim Ocansey Mingle, split the road journey into sessions to manage fatigue. The Starlets left the capital city of Accra and headed to the northwest direction towards the city of Bolgatanga, where they camped for four (4) days undergoing acclimatization training at the Kurt E.S. Okraku Winkogo Technical Centre. They completed their preparations sharpening their tactics on the upper east regional artificial turf before embarking on their team bus on Tuesday morning completing the final leg of their journey to Burkina Faso, crossing the line into the neighboring state.

The long road journey comes after the Starlets’ high-profile training tour in North Africa. The young Stags returned from their week-long tour in Morocco’s capital city of Rabat, having played a two-match international friendly series against Morocco’s under-17 team at the King Mohammed VI Football Complex. Coach Mingle used the tie to test his final 29-man talent pool, probing their mettle in a tough away clash.

On the pitch, the young Ghanaians showed promise, recording a comfortable 2-0 win over their hosts in the first encounter courtesy of clinical goals from Hope Agbasi and Alidu Issah. The second match was to turn on a dime as the young Stags were reduced to 10 men early in the second half. They responded with a stunning Yaw Acheampong free-kick to equalize, only to concede a counter-attack goal in the literal final kick of the match to lose 2-1.

Now in Ouagadougou, the Starlets find themselves in a tough Group A, alongside Benin, Togo, and the host nation, Burkina Faso. The regional ties are highly charged, with the top two finalists guaranteed a direct qualification ticket to the 2027 U17 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). With the current political and security developments in some countries in the larger Sahel region, the long road journey has been questioned on several grounds relating to the minors’ welfare. However, the management has it on record that no security-related incident occurred without details being given out for the players’ safety.