The manager of the Ghana national football team, James Kwesi Appiah, has said that the defeat against USA in the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2014 has come as a bit of a surprise for him.
Ghana lost its first match in the tournament by 1-2 yesterday. They had the stronger team on paper as compared to the United States and thus, people were backing them to secure at least one point from the match, but, it wasn’t to be. The American team, against the odds, pulled off a wonderful win.
This is the first time in the last 8 years that USA has defeated Ghana in a World Cup match. In the last two versions of the tournament which had taken place in Germany and South Africa respectively, Ghana had got better of the Yanks.
Ghana was pushed onto the back foot by USA in the very first minute of the match when Clint Dempsey found the net. According to Appiah, that goal took his players by surprise and totally unsettled them.
Talking to the reporters in the post match press conference, the Ghana boss said, “Honestly speaking, we hadn’t thought that we would concede a goal so early. It was a very poor start for us. We got unsettled after that.”
“When you play at such a big stage, you need to keep your concentration level right up there for the full 90 minutes. You can’t let yourself get off the mark even momentarily; otherwise, you will have to pay the price for that.”
“This result is certainly unexpected, but, you’ve got to give it to the USA team for the way they played. As far as we are concerned, we are still in the tournament, but, we need to improve.”