Anthony Edusei, Head Coach of the national under-20 soccer team, Black Satellites, has blamed his side's early exit from the 13th African Youth Championship currently on-going in Burkina Faso on poor preparation cum injuries by some key players.

In an interview with the GNA, the coach said the team did not have the best of preparations prior to the tournament - there were not enough friendly matches both local and foreign- to test readiness of the team for the championship.

He said one other major setback was the fact that most of the foreign-based players joined the team late and it took some time for them to jell.

"To make matter worse, the foreign-based players who had slight injuries before joining the team had their predicament worsened as the competition progressed", the worried coach told the GNA.

"Sometimes it is very difficult to get the full compliment of the team even at training because, either some players were being rested in order not to aggravate their injuries before a match or some are just not fit to play", he said.

Coach Edusei said the team was tactically and technically good adding that if they had prepared well, they would have done better.

He said the final group B match against La Cote D'Ivoire was not a match that the team should have lost.

"We played very well in the first half and did not allow them into the game, but we failed to take our chances. Our strikers lacked composure when it Mattered most and were unable to take the chances as they came", the coach said.

Coach Edusei said he was sad the team could not meet the high expectation of Ghanaians, which was at least to qualify for the World Youth Championship slated for the United Arab Emirate in March, this year.

Ghana placed third in Group B on two points after drawing her first two matches against Morocco and Egypt before loosing to Cote D'Ivoire 2-3 in the final group match on Saturday.

The early exit from the year's championship was the team's worse in recent times in the African Youth Championship having won the 1999 edition hosted by Ghana and was runner up at the last two editions.