The drawing of teams for the West Africa Football Union (Wafu) tournament would be comforting for Sellas Tetteh as he prepares his Black Satellites for the major African Youth Championship next year.
For Sellas Tetteh, one of Ghana’s young technical brains with the aspiration of being a top coach, the tourney would test his players but also present them with an opportunity to win the competition again.
Ghana won the last Wafu Cup when it hosted and won a four-nation tournament in Accra in 2005.
The Black Satellites beat Senegal 3-1 to lift the ultimate in the finals then. This time round, Ghana would have another brush up against the Senegalese in the group stages.
Other teams pitted against Ghana in Group B are Gambia and Guinea for the tournament scheduled for Nigeria from November 28 to December 7.
But the competition is been revised following the announcement of a US$4m sponsorship deal with telecommunication company Globacom last year.
Organisers of the tournament conducted the draw over the weekend which will have 14 countries from the sub-region participating.
The Black Satellites open their Wafu Cup campaign in Ughelli in Nigeria's Delta State, against Senegal on November 28, before taking on Guinea two days later and a game against familiar opponents, the Gambia on December 2.
Sellas Tetteh begun preparations last Wednesday in Accra with a 30-member Black Satellites squad called up.
After helping Ghana qualify for the African Youth Championship after two successive qualification failures, Sellas Tetteh is confident of using the Wafu competition to get his boys on track for the finals of next year’s competition.
The Wafu competition would also see hosts, Nigeria who are is paired in Group A alongside Togo, Benin and Guinea Bissau.
Group C consist of Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and Mauritania whilst Mali, Cape Verde, Niger and Liberia make up Group D.
According to the competition rules, the first two clubs from each group after the round-robin will progress to the quarterfinals, with the winners advancing to the semi final stage.
The final and third place match comes off on December 7.