Ghana v. Cote D'Ivoire Match Preview

Today marks the day of destiny for both the black stars and the elephants as they both look to bring to an end their respective hoodoos. Both are without a senior men's tournament triumph in decades; In many ways the stakes could not be higher. 

Ghana's last ACN tournament victory was all the way back in 1982 (the year of my birth!). Since then our national team has flattered to deceive on a number of occasions. In the 33 years following our last trophy, Ghana has only been to the final twice; today's showpiece will be our third. 

Incidentally the first of those final appearances came against the Ivory Coast back in Senegal 1992. It was a tightly contested affair ending in a dramatic penalty shootout in favour of our neighbours. The victory marked their first, and to this date, their only African Cup triumph.

Both sides have gone on to reach at least one more appearance in the final before today. Ghana did so in 2010 only to lose narrowly to Egypt, the undisputed kings of African football at the time. Cote D'Ivoire have made it to the brink of glory only to be caught out on penalty shootouts each time. Egypt bested them in 2006, the first of three consecutive titles for the pharaohs. In 2012 they suffered the same fate to Zambia, and by doing so landed the "chipolopolo" their first championship.

In recent years bad luck and bad form have played equal part in both of this year's finalists' underachievements. The elephants have boasted a golden generation of footballers with teams that were packed with household names such as Didier Drogba, Kolo & Yaya Toure to name a few but somehow could not get over the line. Ghana similarly had the talent to do better with the likes of Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah and Sulley Muntari all being the cornerstone of black stars past that haven't been able to get the proverbial ACN monkey off our backs. 

Today represents a shot at redemption and long overdue glory for both camps. The pressure to succeed will rest on the shoulders of both teams but I'd argue that on paper the Ivory Coast have the better players and therefore should go into the match as favorites. However Ghana's collective spirit and team first attitude could mean that our sum is worth more than our individual parts.

The victor today will be able to consign years of frustration to the history books. For the defeated finalist, the search for that elusive crown will go on. May the best team win (hopefully that means Ghana!) 

Ghana vs. Portugal Preview: Conspiracies Cloud Black Stars Clash

Conspiracies Cloud Clash Between Black Stars and Portugal

Under normal circumstances I would start my preview by looking at where the Black Stars are as a team then I would focus on the importance and implications of the game ahead. However the current climate of controversy is extremely hard to ignore. Talk of conspiracies have already started to dominate the thoughts of everyone connected to our national team.  I like many have been taken by this topic, in fact I watched a documentary last night on Channel 4 entitled "How to Fix a Football Match". The exposé centres around two senior members of the GFA and affiliated staff; Christopher Forsythe, a FIFA accredited agent and Obed Nketiah, who sits on the management committee of the Ghana Under-20 team. I think it's fair to say that based on the video evidence its not looking good for those two. If you haven't seen it already I suggest you watch it and make of it what you will.

At this point I genuinely don't think there are many Ghana fans who haven't read or seen comments and articles related to these allegations that question the integrity of some of the men who run (or at least help run) the Ghana Football Association. But what really fascinates me is the timing of this story. Isn't it strange how at a time when Germany and the USA could collude by agreeing to draw their final game, that Ghana's match fixing allegations are being brought into the public domain? The timing from a Ghanaian perspective couldn't be worse.

In case you weren't aware, a draw between Germany and the USA will result in both side qualifying to the next round regardless of the results elsewhere.The fascinating part of all of this is the coaching staff's connection between the USA and Germany. Jurgen Klinsmann, the current USA coach, was in charge of the German national team during the 2006 World Cup with none other than Joachim Loew (the current Germany boss) as his assistant. So we know there is a line of direct communication between them at worst and a strong relationship between them at best. Both managers have obviously denied that there is any conspiracy. But...Put it this way, I won't be at all surprised if the game ends in a draw. However I am hoping that Germany get the win we need.

Ultimately, we only have ourselves to blame for being in this situation. We lost the opening game to the USA and failed to find an improbable win against Germany. In both those matches we had very good chances to either create or score goals and we didn't take enough of them. Another area of concern is our leaky defending of set pieces, particularly corners. We have conceded against both our opponents directly from corner kicks, which suggests that this might be a problem and something to look out for during our final match against Portugal.

I don't want to be too critical of Ghana because there was a definite improvement in the team after the first game. Coach Appiah set the team up very well tactically (and seemingly took some of my advice) which resulted in marked improvement in the quality of the teams play against Germany. I think the players we have at our disposal are more comfortable playing on the break than they are dominating possession further up the pitch based on the evidence of the first two matches of the tournament. And because of that I would prefer we went with a similar tactical set up going into the Portugal match.

That's not to say we should do the exact same thing as we did against Germany. Far from it, the Portuguese have different strengths to the Germans. They are also better when they sit deep and counter. However in their first game I think they made a mistake by playing a high line against Germany and were punished. This may have been due to the fitness issues of their Talisman Cristiano Ronaldo. Playing on the counter means your forwards have to sprint longer distances to have opportunities to score. If your best player who also happens to be your best and fastest athlete AND your most obvious goal threat (which Ronaldo certainly is), isn't 100% fit, then it doesn't make sense to simply drop deep. I think that is the reason Portugal elected to push up the field so he doesn't have to cover as many long distances to goal.

The strength of the Portuguese is on their flanks. Manchester United's Nani and the aforementioned Ronaldo will pose the most threat the Ghanaian back line. Both their goals against the USA were created from wide. Upfront they don't have quite the same quality of player as they do out wide but our central defensive pairing should always be weary and intelligent with their defending. Against Germany our defending of the wide areas of the pitch wasn't the best but I believe that was part of our tactical set up. We knew the Germans would not play with much width, both of the players who play in those positions are really number 10's playing out wide and so affording them space out wide is the lesser of two evils. Not to mention the German full backs prefer to play centre back.

Against Portugal defending the flanks will go along way in stopping the supply line for their attacks. That means we need disciplined performances from our full backs Harrison Afful and Kojo Asamoah. We also need to be compact, which means we move as a solid unit across the pitch to cover the space that causes immediate danger rather than allowing too much space between each player in our team (like distances between defence midfield and attack). Another key difference in the set up will be how the midfield performs. Christian Atsu and Andre Ayew need to cover the runs of the opposition full backs to ease the pressure that our defence will face. Most importantly our central midfield, likely to be Rabiu Mohammed alongside either Agyemang Badu or Michael Essien (if he's fit), will need to spot any danger early and cover spaces that the Portuguese will try to exploit.

I think we should go with a similar line-up to our last game with the exception of Muntari (suspended) who will most likely be replaced by Essien. I think Kevin Prince Boateng should improve with another game under his belt. He's a more natural midfield player than a forward so he should be able to pitch in and help defensively. He wasn't at his best against Germany but hopefully he will have greater impact on the game this time. Our goal threat will be carried by our front three of Atsu, Ayew and our captain Asamoah Gyan. I think they have all the attributes to cause the Portuguese problems and score the goals we need for victory.

Overall I genuinely believe we can win the game, which may well be a battle of who can counter-attack better. I think that Ghana have the better athletes on the pitch (with the obvious exception of Ronaldo, but K. Bonsam has that covered!) and if we are more efficient and clever with how we approach the game particularly in the final third we have have a great opportunity to get the result we need. We must Must MUST be more concentrated on set pieces and avoid sloppy goals. If we are going to concede make sure our opponent does something spectacular to score rather than gifting them goals. The rest will be up to Germany to fulfil their end of the bargain. Anything less than a German victory and we're on the next flight to Kotoka. If you want to understand more about the different permutations for qualification, I wrote a post about it here.

Both games will start at 5pm GMT so I think most of us will be watching the Ghana match and also following the Germany game via whatever means we have available. I wish the Black Stars the best of luck tomorrow. Hopefully I will be writing my next post about our round of 16 opponents. Until next time.

You can follow me on twitter: @kwamberto

Ghana World Cup News Round-Up

Ghana Black Stars News Round-Up

Well... a lot has happened since our exhilarating 2-2 draw with ze Germans! After the final whistle blew in our game we all knew that the Portuguese would have to do us a favour for us to stay in the tournament. Their game kicked off last night at 11pm local time so I didn't watch it due to work commitments the following day. I went to bed knowing that Portugal were already 1-up after 5 minutes. Naturally I was hopeful that they were well on their way to giving the USA a sound beating and by doing so keeping our hopes alive. I woke up this morning to find out that Portugal hadn't done the business and in fact needed a last last gasp goal to equalise against the yanks. And even more surprisingly that wasn't the biggest news story affecting our national team today... (more on that later).

But we shall start with the USA v Portugal match. Just like our game against Germany the day before it ended in a 2-2 stalemate with the USA leading 2-1 as late as the 93rd minute!! (How agonisingly close it must have been for the Ghana and Porgutal fans that watched it live). Indeed had Cristiano Ronaldo not shaken off his niggling injury woes (and all the "work" Kwaku Bonsam is doing on him) to produce a quality cross for Silvestre Varela's equaliser in the 4th minute of stoppage time, we would have been out of the tournament.

I guess I speak for most Ghana fans and sympathisers alike when I say PHEW! As my wife would say we dodged a bullet with that one. But unfortunately we aren't out of the woods yet either. As we know anything less than victory for us means we are out. Aside from that we still need a number of different things to go our way to qualify. For the sake of simplicity I will try and break them down. In addition to a Ghana win, we also need:
a) Germany to beat the USA in their final game (anything less, we're out)
b) Ghana to have a better goal difference than the USA.

Just to make things clear to those of you that are anal, there is a scenario where Germany lose and we go through but I think that it's highly improbable. This would mean that Germany need to lose heavily to the USA (unlikely) and / or Ghana would probably need to win by a large margin against Portugal (not impossible but also unlikely) to overcome Germany's superior goal difference. Ghana would need a 5 goal swing in this scenario so I think USA losing is much better for us.

Now as things stand, Germany top the group with 4 points (goal diff of +4). The USA are second currently also with 4 (and goal diff +1). Ghana and Portugal sit in 3rd and 4th respectively with a point each (Ghana has a better goal diff of -1 compared to -4 for Portugal). So the margin of victory in both games will be crucial for Ghana. If Germany win by a single goal then Ghana has to win by 2 goals at least. If Germany hammer the USA like they did Portugal in their first game, or win by 2 goals or more then any victory for Ghana will do. 

Forgive my pessimism but I prefer the second scenario for us to qualify. Not because I don't think we can beat the Portuguese by 2 clear goals because I do... But rather because I believe that having such a specific target could create instability in the mentality of the team. I think its easier simply to go for a win and not have to worry about the margin of victory. We are relying on Germany getting a result anyway, if USA avoids defeat we are OUT so its better to focus on getting "the W" rather than worrying about goal difference in my opinion.

So, in conclusion A LOT of things have to go our way for us to qualify, but I think anything is possible. I am sure there will be a lot of prayers and good wishes for the team before the game on Thursday. Sulley Muntari is already creating good karma for himself and the team with his charitable acts in Brazil, which is lovely to see. I will be writing a preview for the game similar to the one I did for the Germany game on Wednesday so please be on the lookout for that.

In other Black Stars related news, there seems to be allegations of corruption by GFA officials selling the rights for friendly international games to match fixers. It was the front page story for some major UK news outlets. I don't want to add to much fuel to the fire here so I won't go into too much detail, but the GFA themselves have gone on record to say they reported this to the police. For more updates on this you can follow my timeline on twitter as I will post any major updates on this story there.

That's all from me. Until next time...

You can follow me on twitter: @kwamberto