Former Ghana captain Stephen Appiah has claimed that the black stars should be wary of the threat posed by Cristiano Ronaldo at the World Cup 2014. Ghana have been given one of the toughest groups at the competition. They will not only be coming up against former world champions Germany, but Portugal and the USA are the other opponents. All teams are expected to be in with a shout to qualify for the knockout stages of the tournament. Ghana, though, are definitely inferior since they know not have recognised stars following the decline of Michael Essien.
Cristiano Ronaldo has already been marked out as the star to watch at this World Cup. He comes into the competition as the reigning world player of the year after managing to beat Lionel Messi for this award. It is highly anticipated that the opening match for Ghana will go a long way into deciding their World Cup as a whole. They will be coming up against the USA, which is a match they need to get three points with no exception, followed by encounters against Portugal and Germany. Appiah, who has played against some of the best players in the world during his time at Udinese and Juventus, says that Ghana should be warned about Ronaldo.
“There is a guy [Ronaldo] who has overshadowed all the players but they have a good team and nobody is talking about the other players. He is making the difference anyway and I think you watched the game against Sweden and you saw what he did so that tells it all. It is going to be difficult because beating them on two occasions it is never going to be easy. Here is the case they are playing us first and that will be difficult and definitely they are coming for revenge,” said the former Ghana captain.