The quest of 12 African sides vying to pick only one of the three places available for next year’s Men’s Olympic Games is expected to receive huge interest when the continent’s qualifying campaign kicks off this weekend.

Though the qualifying matches would clash with some important preliminaries for the 2008 African Cup of Nations finals, the Beijing Olympics qualifying competition is expected to draw the same attention.

However the West African derby between Ghana and Nigeria tops the bill this weekend in the Olympic qualifying series.

Ghana and Nigeria meet in Group A, in a game which revives a long-standing rivalry between the two countries.

For Nigeria the clash offers the chance to settle a score after their shock elimination from the 2007 All-Africa Games qualifiers by Ghana on away goals after two draws.

As Ghana continue to focus on Sunday’s clash, the host have done most of the pre-match talk dismissing the strength of the Black Meteors even before kick off.

The Black Meteors led by the experienced Cecil Jones Attuquayefio, the man who plotted victory over Nigeria in the All-African Games qualifier admits that it would be a difficult game but says it’s just one match in Group A, which includes Ethiopia and South Africa.

“The fact is that Ghana against Nigeria is always a very difficult task.