African hopefuls head to the beach

It was the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu who said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. For ten African beach soccer teams that famous quote becomes real this weekend as they take a first step that they all hope will ultimately take them several thousand miles to the Bahamas and the ninth FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. The winners of the four two-legged play-off matches will qualify for the CAF Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations, along with hosts Nigeria as well as a trio of North African teams who qualified based on withdrawals. Joining the Nigerians will be Morocco, Egypt and Libya, who received byes into the finals after Liberia, Uganda and Sudan respectively pulled out of the competition. The continental event is scheduled to be played in mid-December, and it will be there that two African teams book their tickets to the global finals, which begins in the Atlantic Ocean nation in April of next year.East-west rivalryArguably the pick of the qualifying ties will be the encounter between Kenya and Ghana, with both teams pulling out all the stops to move on over the home-and-away legs. Harambee Sand Stars coach Rajab Babu is confident that they can beat the west Africans, saying: “We respect that our opponents are a tough nut to crack since they have been active in beach football for many years, but we want to win and should have an …

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