The Black Meteors of Ghana, Ghana’s U-23 senior national team, would this weekend begin the long torturous road to qualification for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics with a home qualifier against the Liberian Olympic team.

The Meteors have already booked their place at the All African Games, but would need to navigate several qualifiers if they are to make the trip to the Brazil Olympics.

Ghana has not made progress to the World stage since the Stephen Appiah led team at Athens 2004. That side had Asamoah Gyan, John Panstil, John Mensah, and Derek Boateng- all of who went on to explode at the international level for Ghana, and the absence of the team since has stunted that sort of fairy tale progression of players.

A move towards that could begin with this game, which Ghana enters as favourites. This is Ghana’s home leg, although we might host the second leg as well with the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.

A win would see Ghana progress to the next round, which would entail a game against Congo Brazzaville, and then Nigeria in the longest qualification road to a major tournament I’ve ever seen.

It begins tomorrow, in Tamale; with Nigerian officials set to handle the game.