The West Africans ladies could not make it into the last four of the 2018 U-17 Women World Cup hosted in Uruguay after falling on penalties on last Sunday.

The Tournament

The FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup was brought to birth in 2008.

It is a biennial international women's youth football competition which is only contested by the U-17 team of the FIFA association members.

The 2018 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup is the 6th edition and is being hosted by the South America country Uruguay

Starting from the 13 November – 1 December 2018

The tournament had 16 teams all from the 6 confederations.

The official mascot is called Capi which was inspired by a Uruguayan capybara.

And the slogan for this year competition is "Same Game, Same Emotion".

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Africa's Representatives

The Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) had Cameroon(central Africa), Ghana(West Africa) and South Africa(South Africa) as her three representatives in this year's tournament.

Ghana found theirselves in Group A with the host nation Uruguay. Ghana finished top of group A after a 0-5 whitewashing of Uruguay, 1-3 win against Finland and sealing it up with a 2-0 win over New Zealand with Mukarama Abdulai scoring 6 of those goals.

South Africa in Group B were only able to pick just a point after 3 group matches. After a 0-0 draw with Mexico, Japan 6-0 South Africa, and South Africa 1-4 Brazil, finishing bottom of the table

Cameroon in Group C loose their first game USA 3-0 Cameroon, bounce back to win their second against Germany 0-1, but loose their last again 1-2 to North Korea to finish 3th on the table but couldn't make it to the next round.

So at the end of the first round Africa was left with Ghana as their last representatives.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

The Quarter-finals

Ghana vs Mexico

25/09/2018

Kick-off: 16:00 GMT

Ghana qualified to the quarter finals after finishing top in Group A with 9 points while Mexico came second in Group B behind Japan with 5 points.

With such an outstanding performance at the group stage of the competition, Ghana went into this game as clear favourite as the best attacking side scoring 10 goals and concerning only 1 in the three games. Mexico on the other side managed to score only 2 goals and concerning 1.

The first half was such a balance game between both sides as the game ended with a 0-0 score line Half Time.

Few seconds into the beginning of the second half Mukarama Abdulai put Ghana 1-0 up with a super header, increasing her goal tally to 7 in the tournament to become her country's all-time top scorer.

15 minutes later Mexico fought back through a penalty, as the captain of the side Nicole Perez didn't miss her target, which brought the game to a 1-1

The African side kept pushing hard and were rewarded in the 75th minute as they went 2-1 up from Suzzy Teye strick.

The joy and the jubilation didn't see the light of the day as it lasted for only seven minutes as Nicole Perez hits her second goal in the game directly from a free-kick in the 82th minute to level the game at 2-2

This scores stood still until the end of regular time which then send the game straight to the penalty shoot out.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Time Up

Penalty they say is a game of luck because it can go either way.

The quarter-final went to penalties with Justice Tweneboa's 2nd and Elizabeth Oppong's 4th spot kicks both suffering the heartbreak of having their shots saved by the Mexican goalkeeper, while Mexico on the other end did justice to all their four kicks.

That brought Africa to the end of the road at the 2018 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in Uruguay with nothing to should.

Below is the highlight of the Black Maidens' defeat

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

You Really Do Have Something To Look Forward To

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.”

Napoleon Hill

You fought a good fight

The future of Africa Women's football is bright with this team, remember the highest goal scorer is from this team, so cheer up maidens.

And to the coach “Please maintain this team and move forward to the U-20 competitions”

Thank you

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'""'"'""'''''"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Thanks for reading

Please don't forget to comment and correct where necessary.

Please upvote

@akudozen