Black Stars coach, Kwesi Appiah has outlined the importance of Ghana’s AFCON qualifier against Kenya in the coming days. Appiah wants to maintain the team’s momentum and the motivating factor will be the fact that they haven’t lost in this year’s qualifiers.
The team trained last night in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where 16 players went through the paces with the technical team. “The altitude in Kenya is really high and that is why we came to Ethiopia because it is higher than Kenya. The training programme is going really well.” Appiah said after the training session.
The Harambee Stars of Kenya are looking to qualify for the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 14 years and the game in Kasarani could spark what could be an exciting journey to reaching Africa’s major football tourney this time to be hosted in Cameroon. Kenyan coach, Sebastian Migne has called up 38 players for training- a number he will whittle down Friday to 23. In a bid to build a solid team, he has called up many young Kenyans who play across Europe to give them a fair crack at breaking into the team and helping the nation.
Appiah’s strategy has always been to meticulously assess his opponents to map out a game plan for them but after watching the videos of the Kenyans and how large the pool of players who have been called is, he believes the right path to chart is to be the best of the day. “I have watched a couple of videos of them. The difference is that for this particular game they invited a lot of new foreign players and for that reason we cannot depend on what we have watched because they can change the players. Tactically they can change as well so the most important thing is to prepare very well to be able to face them” Appiah revealed in an interaction with the media. The Black Stars coach also called for Ghanaians to support the team.
19 players including Inter star, Kwadwo Asamoah are in camp in Ethiopia awaiting the game on Saturday. Veteran Harrison Afful is expected to join the side later on Wednesday and then they jet off from Ethiopia to Kenya on Thursday to continue match preparations.
By: Yaw Ofosu Larbi|3news.com|Ghana