Ghanaians are very excited about the 2022 World Cup and consume football 24 hours a day. Since the team focused for the test, the country “stands still” and talks only about football, without hiding the enthusiasm surrounding the selection. “I have spoken to many friends and leaders in Ghana and it is expected that they will regard anything less than reaching the semi-finals as a failure.”shot Portuguese Mariano Barreto, who led the 2004 Ghana national team, Portugal’s opponent, in the first leg (Thursday at 4 p.m.).
The African champions of 1963, 1965, 1978 and 1982 combine physical availability with technical quality, the former coach believes: “Ghana will play football very objectively, with the aim of trying to play very close to the Portuguese goal. They don’t care about possession, but attack and score a goal when they win the ball.”
When the Portuguese team entered the group of the Ghanaians through the draw, Portuguese journalist Pedro Cid, who lives in Ghana, expected an “avalanche of enthusiasm from Cristiano Ronaldo”, not least because the Ghanaians are “arguable consumers” of English football and Portugal has many players in the Premier Legaue. Instead, he realized that “they were only talking about Uruguay and how they hope to avenge their elimination in the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup”, which prevented them from reaching the semi-finals.
Otto Addo had no experience as a head coach, but he had worked on Dortmund’s prospects and knew there were born outside Ghana whose potential was being ignored, such as Iñaki Williams.
That is what the journalist who tells the Qatar 2022 Games in Portuguese for the African continent super sportonly now, closer to the debut, did they start thinking about Portugal and the importance of winning the first match. According to Pedro Cid, the Ghanaian people are capable of performing miracles on a daily basis and the national team is a mirror of this mentality: “If Portugal score first, they will find it difficult to react. To avoid an early goal against, strategy may involve shutting down Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandes, then using speed and physical size to annoy the Portuguese and step foot without fear.
For the Ghanaians, Portugal is like remembering that match of the 2014 World Cup when the players threatened to boycott the game and demanded that they receive the participation prize in cash. A worldwide scandal that forced the president of the federation to fly to Brazil with 2.2 million euros in a suitcase. “Even today they are a little ashamed of what happened🇧🇷 They prefer to forget and even with the journalists present, they divert the subject,” explains Cid, recalling that players, coaches and managers have signed a code of conduct for Qatar 2022 to prevent the scene from happening again .
Otto the Revolutionary
The worst participation in history (23 times) in CAN, in January, forced the Ghanaian FA to rethink the project and make radical changes. Starting with the invitation to coach Otto Addo, who had no experience as a head coach, but he had been prospecting for B. Dortmund and Mönchengladbach, and he knew there were players born outside Ghana whose potential was being ignored. Case of Iñaki Williams, the “biggest star of the moment”, who was born in Spain and plays for Athetic Bilbao (his brother, Nico Williams will represent Spain).
Ghana now has eight nationals out of 26, including Daniel Amartey (Leicester), Thomas Partey (Arsenal) and Mohammed Kudus (Ajax), and brothers Jordan Ayew (Crystal Palace) and captain André Ayew (Al-Sadd). benjamim Fatawu Issahaku (Sporting), whose 18 years make Ghana the team with the lowest average age in Qatar (24.7 years).
The recent victory over Switzerland (2-0) in a warm-up game is an example of how much the team has evolved, despite missing its main goalkeeper (Joe Wollacott) through injury.
Source: DN
