Black Satellites Head Coach Karim Zito has explained the rationale behind dropping team captain Daniel Afriyie Barnieh from his starting eleven for the crucial WAFU Championship semi final against Niger.

Ghana faced off against their Nigerien opponents on Tuesday in the semi final of the WAFU Zone B U-20 Championship currently taking place in Benin.

The match was crucial to Ghana for two main reasons; to offer an opportunity to win silverware by making the finals and also securing one of two available slots for the 2021 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations in Mauritania.

After releasing the starting eleven, conspicuously missing from the team sheet was Daniel Afriyie who had featured prominently in previous games and was also team captain.

Afriyie dropping to the bench was one of 4 changes the coach made and speaking to Kumasi based Silver FM in the aftermath of the game, he has explained the motive behind such a move.

“You should have a rich bench even after getting your eleven starters. He’s the captain. Before [the move] I sat with him and made him aware that he won’t be starting.

“He was tasked to study from the bench so if the opportunity came for him to enter the game, he could make the necessary impact.

” So it’s just a strategy we adopted,” Zito revealed.

Thankfully the decision paid off as Ghana held on to eventually overcome Niger by virtue of a shootout victory. This was after the game ended in a stalemate after extra time.

Ghana will next play Burkina Faso in the final on Saturday December 19.