The American soccer cameras and spotlights will be on one game on Tuesday as Columbus Crew and Toronto FC face off in the Eastern Conference final, and featuring could be four Ghanaians for the Crew.
Jonathan Mensah and Harrison Afful are more likely fixtures in the Crew setup with Mohamed Abu and Lalas Abubakar likely to be deployed on the bench by manager Gregg Berhalter.
Having played 29 and 27 times respectively for Crew this season in the regular MLS season, both Ghana internationals will be hoping to make a mark in the Eastern conference final. Mensah has recovered from a poor start start to continue his adjustment to the sport in America, while Afful remains one of Crew’s best options at the back and a productive attacking outlet on the right as well.
Afful reckons he is excited at helping his side make another conference final and hopes this yields a better result than what they got in 2015.
“It means a lot to me and also to the guys and we are proud of ourselves because we have worked very hard in the past few years and I think we deserve more,” Afful said.
“[In] 2015 I was able to play in the MLS final and it rather unfortunate that we could not win the ultimate. This time round, we are playing the Eastern Conference final. We will make sure we take our chances and makes we don’t concede as well because it’s a home and away game. We need to score more goals and defend well as we think about the next game.
“We just have to be determined and compete and at the end of the day we will see [how it turns out].”
Afful will hope this will be a major turnaround in fortunes for his career in the USA, as he hopes to his first major title in the MLS, as will be for Mensah who joined Crew in the summer of 2016.
By Michael Oti Adjei|3news.com|Ghana