FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers: Ghana Coach reacts to Uganda physicality

Head coach of Ghana’s U-20 women team, Charles Sampson has reacted to the toughness of their 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Uganda.

The Black Princesses fought back from a goal down to beat Uganda 2-1 in the first leg of the Fourth Round at the Accra Sports Stadium on Sunday.

Ghana were stunned in the 38th minute before rallying through Priscilla Mensah and Latifa Abesik 58th and 85th minutes goals to snatch winner.

Charles Sampson admits to Uganda physicality

In a post match interview, Charles Sampson admitted that, Uganda were physically better but Ghana had to think out of the box.

“As for the physicality aspect we know that it’s very important and we’ve been working on it very well,” Sampson told the media.

“We looked really fit but we saw that Uganda had other types of physicality and that wore our players down.

“But our aim is to play around them as quickly as possible to avoid body contact and we didn’t really get that in the first half but we are a team that plays around opponent very quickly.

“We want to go to the World Cup and to go to the World Cup it means we have to go there to get results so now we are going to work things out.

🎥 🇬🇭 “We are working on our physicality. We want to qualify to the World Cup so we will beat Uganda at home.”— Black Princesses coach Charles Sampson looks ahead of the return leg #CitiSports pic.twitter.com/3jEFKQibil

— Citi Sports (@CitiSportsGHA) May 3, 2026

The result gives Ghana a narrow advantage ahead of the return leg in Uganda, with qualification still firmly in their hands.

In other Fourth Round matches of FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers, Cameroon defeated Tanzania 3-1 with Ivory Coast and Benin sharing a 1-1 draw.

Nigeria defeated Malawi 2-0 with the reverse fixtures set between 9-10 May.

⚽ Follow Pan-Africa Football across platforms for real-time news and stories.