Ghana’s Black Starlets has not appeared on the world stage since exiting the FIFA U-17 World Cup at the quarterfinal stage in 2017 but new Head Coach Stephen Frimpong Manso is determined to change this.

To achieve this, Frimpong Manso must first qualify for the games.

Speaking to ghanafa.org, he underlined the key role of quality scouting.

“Well, I think it’s really a difficult job, not a difficult task but a difficult job, in the sense that, at the U-17, you need to go down to the district and then try to find talents yourself apart from those who are in the main stream,” he said.

“There are even players without clubs but they are also good players so you need to cover all those lines and then try to make sure we get a good team.”

He noted, “Screening alone will take us some time because the numbers are huge but once we want it to be better this time, we need to do that so it doesn’t matter how long it takes us we will try to make sure we get good materials and good preparation before we can be able to achieve qualification.”

Doubling down on qualifying for the games, Coach Manso emphasised, also, performance was crucial to improving and sustaining the patriotic support of the citizenry and football fans alike. He underlined it was time to see local teams flourishing in competitive tournaments again.

“It is very important. It is not only about developing players; also we need to achieve something on the field by qualifying for all the major tournaments,” he said.

“In doing so I think people want our team to win cups. Black stars too will qualify to World Cup, the U-23, U-20, and the other national teams have to compete at the highest level.

“So you cannot always be talking about development forgetting about qualification and building a team to fight for titles.

“So I think we need to target qualification this time round and that is what I am here to do.”

Essential to his plan to lead the Starlets to qualify for the U-17 World Cup, he indicated, was introspection on a personal and corporate level.

“I’ve been in that same seat before and then now there are a lot of things that are happening and then on three occasions we couldn’t qualify so we need to find out all those things that happened in the past to know why we have not been able to qualify,” he said.

“We need to fish out all those things and then with my experience earlier, there were some things I experienced so I need to make sure I fish them all out and then try to make sure I try to correct them or try to make sure we do it well this time round.”

Frimpong Manso once served as an Assistant Coach of the Black Starlets, and the Black Meteors, respectively.

He has had coaching stints at Asante Kotoko, Karela United, Bofoakwa Tano, Nkoranza Warriors, Eleven Wonders and Bibiani Gold Stars in Ghana, and at Stade d'Abidjan in Ivory Coast, too.

The FIFA U-17 World Cup will take place from 5 November to 27 November 2025, hosted by Qatar, involving 48 teams for the first time. Germany is the reigning champion.