It’s a make or break affair for Black Stars …as they face Sudan in Libya at the moment
In Libya at the moment, Ghana’s Black Stars can be on a mission to rescue a failing AFCON 2025 qualification bid after they face Sudan in a second leg double-header.
It will probably be a make-or-break affair for the Ghanaians. The Black Stars would want the utmost factors at stake to maintain qualification hopes alive.
Such is the enormity of the duty that faces Coach Otto Addo and his Black Stars squad.
The actuality of lacking out on the continental soccer extravagansa dawned on Ghanaian followers on Thursday after the Black Stars have been held to a goalless encounter in Accra.
It was a sport saddled with scoring challenges because the Black Stars went on a goal-wasting spree, lacking quite a lot of begging possibilities and compounded by a Man-of-the-Match efficiency by the Sudan goalkeeper.
Mohammed Kudus, Antoine Semenyo and second half substitutes Inaki Williams, Abdul Fatawu Ishahaku and Ernest Nuamah have been all culprits.
It left Ghana in a porous third place with two factors, Sudan with 4 factors in second position and leaders, Angola, with six factors, then with a sport in hand.
Therefore, hopes amongst Ghanaians that the final nation on the log, Niger, would apply the brakes on the Palancas Negras on Saturday was excessive. That would at the very least make a Black Stars bounce within the return leg of qualifiers and contest for the highest spot a bit reasonable.
However, Niger lacked the firepower to cease the highflying Angolans who recorded a 2-0 victory to stretch the result in 9 factors to place themselves in an excellent place to stretch the lead once more as they play the identical aspect on the flip of qualifiers.
That leaves the Black Stars with a really troublesome hurdle to scale as they play as friends of the Sudanese who can be bent on getting at the very least some extent once more to consolidate their place.
In the earlier leg, Kwesi Appiah introduced his experience to bear on the sport, admitting the gulf in school so far as participant quality was involved and deployed a technique to simply maintain the Black Stars at bay.
That offered possession to the Black Stars on a silver platter because the Sudanese defended gallantly and massed up within the midfield space to restrict the Stars’ risk.
The Stars capitalised on that technique to maintain the motion within the Sudanese space with their solely downside being the shortcoming to discover a well past the defence.
The Stars, beneath the circumstance, appeared defensively stable however as to how they cope within the face of an anticipated attacking play from Kwesi Appiah and his prices can be what followers would be careful for.
With video games in opposition to Angola and Niger to be contended with by the 2 nations, each Kwesi Appiah and Otto Addo can be fairly cautious of their respective approaches.
But for Addo, his focus can be extra on successful to show the staff’s fortunes round. This, he vowed at his post-match press convention by which he alluded the Sudan success on the day to sheer luck.
“We did everything we had to do. We were just unlucky because we created so many chances, some of which looked easier scoring than missing but none entered the net; that’s football. We have to move on. We’ll beat them in the second leg,” he mentioned after the sport.
That would require an excellent efficiency and enhancement at each a part of play. Inaki Williams, Kudus Mohammed, Jordan Ayew and Semenyo have to be at their absolute best in entrance of objectives to take their possibilities.
In the identical vein, one would anticipate the defence to be shaped round Alidu Seidu, Gideon Mensah, Salisu Mohammed and Alexander Dziku to be on high of their sport to thwart the efforts in opposition to them and supply a protect for Ati-Zigi.
In doing so, will probably be equally necessary for the Stars to additionally watch out with the hazard the Sudanese wield. At least, they confirmed some efficiency in going ahead after subjecting Ghana goalkeeper, Lawrence Ati-Zigi, a couple of threats.
It is a significant take a look at Otto Addo should go with distinction else he ends the ten successive qualification run loved by the Stars.
BY ANDREW NORTEY
