After two-straight impressive appearances at the World Cup, the Black Stars are aware that Ghanaian expectations are very high though they find themselves in a rather tough situation in Brazil.
Asamoah Gyan, captain of the national team accepts that the entire nation expects an improvement on their quarter-final finish in the previous competition four years ago.
Amid the high expectation, Ghana can look no further beyond the group stages where they come up against Germany, the United States and Portugal.
Leaping to the knockout stages of the World Cup from the group, according to the Al-Ain striker will be a big challenge for the Black Stars.
“Definitely, it’s going to be a challenge,” Black Stars captain, Gyan said.
“Portugal has got a great team. Germany, of course, is the favourite; that’s what people are saying. Statistically, they are the favourite in the group, but you might not know what is going to happen.
“Any country that qualifies for the World Cup is a good one. That is where it’s a bit tricky, so we have to just watch out.”
With four goals and in eight games at the World Cup to his credit, Gyan believes that past experiences will put them a good stead to manage their group, which has been described as the “The Group of Death”.
“Yes, I see it like that, but football doesn’t talk about names anymore. We’ve done it before; Ghana has done it before,” he said.
“In 2006, we were in the same group with Italy. Italy went through to win the Cup and we made it instead the US, who were rated 4th in the world around that time and Czech Republic was rated 5th in the world at that time and Ghana was the underdog. And we were able to deliver.”
“The same thing happened in 2010. We were the same underdog and we were able to deliver. So, it has happened before and I don’t feel any pressure at all.
“We’ve got a lot of experience in the World Cup. We’re going to make sure we make every Ghanaian proud by playing our normal game and we’ll see what happens.”
Source: Ghanafa.org
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