The Ethiopian U-20 national side tackles Burundi in Total African U-20 Nations Cup qualifier on Sunday afternoon at the Addis Ababa Stadium. The Junior Waliyas were in residential camp since the start of March while their opponents took a long camp since the fixture was confirmed.
The Ethiopian Football Federation promoted Atanfu Alemu to the head trainer position of the U-20 side at the end of February. The former Electric and Ethiopian U-17 national team boss called up more than 40 players for initial assessment. Coach Atnafu trimmed his squad to 25 players while he included players from his U-17 national side.
Burundi U-20 jetted in to the country on Thrusday. They had two training sessions at the Ethiopian Youth Sports Academy field, which have been the training ground of the Ethiopian U-20 national side, and the Addis Ababa Stadium. Burundi coach Joslin Bipfubusa told Soccer Ethiopia that his charges are aiming for a positive outcome in Addis. “We came here to win the duel and take back a good result for the second leg. We failed to get much information about Ethiopia and we did not try harder to get information’s also. We have prepared in a very best possible way to win the tie.”
Referees from Somalia will handle the game. Center referee Nur Mohammed, his assistances Abdi Nur and Hussein Hassan will officiate the game between Ethiopia and Burundi.
