Ghana played their second group match in the World Cup 2022 qualifying campaign against South Africa at the FNB Stadium.
1. Ghana failed dismally to pitch and control the game against South Africa who created numerous chances which eventually paid off at the tail end of the game through Hlongowane.
2. C.K Akunnor employed a double pivot in Wakaso-Lomotey which undoubtedly thrived under the current circumstances to break lots of pattern play by the opposition. The latter has received lots of backlashes but will draw lots of plaudits after this excelling performance.
3. The laterals for today, Gideon Mensah who sat out in the first qualifier against Ethiopia put out a gallant display to give the head coach something to ponder on moving forward. His other partner, Fatau, didn’t get the needed connection he desired with Yaw Yeboah but they both tried their best regardless.
4. In the absence of Daniel Amartey, US-based Columbus Crew defender, Jonathan Mensah stepped up to the plate and formed a solid partnership with Alexander Djiku. They complimented each other for 90 minutes spurring the blushes of South African-based goalie Richard Ofori replaced later on by Ati Ziggi only to concede in the dying embers of the game.
5. The team struggled to create any clear goal-scoring opportunity which should be a source of worry for anyone who has the country at heart.
Lots of things went wrong for the team, some of the players were deployed in wrong positions which affected their performances on the day whiles the substitutions employed at some stages also didn’t help matters as the teams overall play was only awful as it gets.
In the end, C.K.will have some deep thinking to do tactically if the team is to pick themselves up in remaining games.
