No Black Stars Player Could Ever Challenge My Decision To Take Penalty Kicks - Stephen Appiah

Former Ghana captain Stephen Appiah has made an assertive revelation insisting no player in the Black Stars could ever challenge his decision to take a penalty kick during his time with the National team.

Appiah captained the Black Stars from 2003 to 2010 before retiring from the National team.

The former Juventus player was one of the iconic footballers in the National team as a result regarded as one of the influential players to ever lead the Black Stars team.

In 2010, Ghana suffered a painful quarterfinal exit from the FIFA World Cup hosted in South Africa after losing on penalties to Uruguay, a game the Black Stars could have won in extra time but for a late penalty miss by forward Asamoah Gyan, an incident which goes down as one of the bitter defeats for the Black Stars.

Gyan, who was Ghana’s lead scorer at the World Cup in 2010 having scored thrice at the tournament against Serbia, Australia and the USA was said to have gone against Appiah’s decision to take the penalty against Uruguay after the latter had made his intention to effect the kick.

Contrary to the reports, the former Fenerbahçe and Udinese star who was capped 67 times by the National team has denied the said reports insisting none of his teammates could ever challenge his decision to take a penalty during games.

“No player in the Black Stars could take the ball from me when I had made a decision to take a penalty kick, there was absolutely no player, never! Everybody will stand aside as soon as I made a decision to take a penalty kick,” he told GTV.

He led Ghana to the 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cups in Germany and South Africa and also captained the team at the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt where Ghana failed to progress past the Group stage.