The 2009 African Youth Championship begins today at Amahoro stadium with eight African countries battling for a gold medal and eyes will be fixed on the stars of tomorrow that will be re-born from this championship.

GROUP A - Rwanda, Cameroon, Mali, Ghana

The weather, high altitude of 1480 meters above sea level as well as home suport will be in favour of the host team. Yet, they will be up against it in a group that boasts 1995 champions Cameroon, two-time winners Ghana and Mali, who are known to have paraded useful youth teams over the years.

The confidence of the Junior Wasps must be boosted by the fact that the last tournament hosts, Congo Brazzaville, emerged victorious despite not making any impact at this level previously.

Players to watch include APR trio of Haruna Niyonzima, Elias Uzamukunda, Jean Claude Iranzi and Atraco custodian.

However, Rwanda has added something to their game during their three week training camp in North Africa and will provide a solid test than expected.

Two years ago, the Junior Lions failed to go past the first round of the competition. However, they have since made up for this by outscoring defending champions Congo Brazzaville in the qualifying series for this year's tournament. This did not come easy as they were held to a scoreless draw at home in the first leg before they fought back to win in Brazzaville 2-0.

The sprinkling of overseas-based players includes Asong Joseph Leke from Espanyol of Spain, Bosso Aristide Cedric of Anderlecht and Nkoum Victor Cedric, who is at Paris Saint-Germain.

In one of their warm-up matches against a local Kenya team, they won 3-0. They are handled by Alain Wabo alias Capello after the England manager.

Mali’s Under-20 team, coached by Djibril Dramé, prepared for competition spent nearly two weeks in neighboring Burundi.

They have however suffered a huge impede after they lost, through injury, skipper Bassirou Dembele, who had finished signing for Paris Saint-Germain from the famous Salif Keita academy.

Other notable absentees are central defender Kassim Doumbia, who moved to Belgium, striker Cheibane Traore of CSD Koulikoro as well as CSK midfielder Oumar Kone along with team-mate Adama Kamissoko.

ASKO Bamako provides the bulk of the squad - Ibrahim Bosso Mounkoro, Adama Keita, Ousmane Diarra, Drissa Fane, and Cheick Oumar Ballo. Foreign-based players include Samba Sow (RC Lens, France), Boubacar Bangoura (Esperance Tunis), Yacouba Diarra (Etoile, Tunisia), Adama Traore (PSG, France), Moussa Guindo (ASEC, Ivory Coast) and Souleymane Diabate (Jomo Cosmos, South Africa).

Mali’s best showing at the AYC was fourth place at the 1995 tournament hosted by Nigeria. Mali ousted Tunisia and Benin on her road to Rwanda.

Mali has proven a fine pedigree at youth level having finished third at the 1999 Fifa World Youth Championship in Nigeria with players like Barcelona’s Seydou Keita in their ranks.

The Black Satellites will rely on her players who participated in the country’s team to the 2007 Fifa Under-17 World Cup in Korea.

They will be missing two influential players as a result of injury Daniel Opare, who shone at the U-17 World Cup and is highly thought of at Spanish champions Real Madrid, and midfielder Rabiu Mohamed, who features in the Spanish second division with Xerez.

Black Satellites will be led by striker Eric Bekoe, who Ghana Premier league top scorer last season. The latter has joined Egyptian club Ismaily from Asante Kotoko.

The notable player is Ranford Osei who has can hardly miss any scoring opportunity on the goal. Osei hit a hat trick in Kenya recently where the Ghanaians have been putting final touches to their preparations under the watchful eyes of Coach Silas Tetteh.

Other players to look out for are Denmark-based Emmanuel Clottey and Bradley Hudson-Odoi from English club Fulham.

They ended Angola and Gambia’s campaign of reaching Rwanda finals in the qualifiers and their confidence is vast after they won the Wafu tournament in Delta state, Nigeria in December.

GROUP B - Nigeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, South Africa

Like Ghana, the Flying Eagles are built around the team from the Fifa U-17 World Cup in Korea.

From the team that won that championship two years ago come skipper Lukman Haruna, Rabiu Ibrahim, Kingsley Udoh, Macauley Chrisantus and Gani Oseni. All these players now ply their trade in Europe.

Several promising youngsters from the domestic championship like Samuel Tswanya, Sunday Abe and Gbolahan Salami also have a chance to move overseas after this tournament. 
Nigeria is gunning for a sixth championship win after they lost in the 2007 final to Congo Brazzaville.

Coach Ladan Bosso has come under fire despite the fact that the Flying Eagles were unbeaten in the qualifiers against Senegal and Sudan.

There was even speculation that he would be fired. And days before the team’s departure to Kigali, he was ordered to stay away from training after some of his comments in the media embarrassed the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

Officials said they have kept faith with the 42-year-old handler because he guided Nigeria to the last eight of the 2007 World Youth Championship in Canada.

Three-time winners of the AYC, Egypt will also host the Fifa World Youth Championship in later this year in September.

In the qualifying tournament for this year's competition, they sent Zimbabwe packing on a 6-0 aggregate. They were jolted in the second round by Zambia, who held them to a 3-3 draw in Cairo. However, the young Egyptians showed great character by winning the return leg in Zambia 1-0 to seal their place at the African Youth Championship.

Their opening Group B fixture against Nigeria is expected to define this first round section.

Ivory Coast had produced a solid team thanks from the famous Asec academy which has nurtured some of the country's top stars thus continue to remain a dominant force in youth football in Africa.

However, they are yet to fulfill their true potential by going all the way and winning the tournament. They have twice played in the AYC final, in 1991 and 2003.

The Young Elephants are coached by former international goalkeeper Alain Gouamene and showed true class during the Wafu regional tournament in Nigeria in December.

The players to watch include goalkeeper Kone Ibrahim and 19-year-old striker Gohi Bi Cyriac, who was top scorer in the Ivorian league last season and has now signed for English club Charlton Athletic. But he will not feature in the inaugural Championship of African Nations (CHAN) because his transfer to England in December means he is no longer an amateur.

The Ivorians' preparations though have been hampered by financial constraints so much so that they had to cancel a planned training stint in Burundi prior to the competition.

They eliminated neighbors Guinea and Burkina Faso to get this far.

The Amajita went as far as the final of the 1997 tournament in Morocco with a certain Benny McCarthy leading the attack.

This will be their fourth appearance at the AYC. To reach Rwanda 2009, the team skippered by defender Ramahlwe Mphahlele defeated Reunion and Botswana.

Coach Serame Lesoaka though has had to battle Premier Soccer League clubs like Moroka Swallows to release players to his squad. Lesoaka's target is qualification to the World Youth Championship in Egypt.

"We are looking beyond this championship. The World Cup is the big picture," he said.

They have their work cut out even though a respectable showing in the first round could still earn them a World Championship ticket. If hosts Egypt make it into the knock-out phase of the AYC, Africa will then be represented by five teams at the world Under-20 event later in the year.

So far, 15 editions of the tournament have already been organised. Only seven countries have won the trophy at least once. Nigeria tops the chart of winners after grabbing the trophy five times. Egypt is second with three trophies won.

Ghana comes next after obtaining the trophy twice. Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Congo have each lifted the trophy once.

The African Youth Champion also serves as qualifies for the World Youth Championship, whose next edition will be staged in Egypt later in the year. Rwanda opens the competition against Mali at Amahoro stadium tomorrow before Ghana take on arch rivals Cameroon.

The Caf U-20 African Championship is held every two years with the top 4 teams qualifying for the Fifa World Youth Championship