As the Black Stars get ready to play in their fourth World Cup final, interim Ghana manager Otto Addo thinks his team can have a big effect in Qatar. After Ghana’s early elimination from the Africa Cup of Nations, Milovan Rajevac was fired, and Addo, who had no prior experience as a senior coach, was named coach.
“Anyone we face, we can defeat. The players will decide that, not me. They have reached this point thanks to their performances. They are capable, whether or not there is me,” Addo told the FIFA website. “I’m in charge of putting them in the greatest places possible so they can perform at their peak levels both with and without the ball. To play together, they must be able to.
Ghana’s first match in Group H will be against Portugal on November 24, followed by matches against South Korea four days later and Uruguay on December 2. Addo will serve as Ghana’s national team manager while also serving as the club’s talent manager.
The three opponents we face are all formidable, so either we win all three or lose all three. How we respond to their playing style, how we stop them, and how well we function as a team will depend on us, Addo said.
The first game will be the deciding one, but every game is different. The second and third games are dependent on the first. In the second game, if we win, we should attack more, but if we draw, we can arrange things differently.
In a rematch of the contentious 2010 World Cup quarterfinal between Ghana and Uruguay, which the South Americans won on penalties to prevent Ghana from becoming the first African side to reach the semifinals, Ghana will play Uruguay.
