Kwesi Appiah played for Ghana at the 2015 AFCON
Ghana forward Kwesi Appiah has revealed that signing for Crystal Palace opened the door for his maiden call-up to the Black Stars.
Appiah was handed a maiden call-up to the senior national team after Avram Grant was appointed head coach of the Black Stars.
Grant had been scouting for Ghanaian talents in Europe and the striker, who was on loan at Cambridge United from Crystal Palace showed lot of promise and was the Israelis wild card at AFCON 2015.
“Signing for Crystal Palace raised my profile and people within the Ghanaian setup started going: ‘Oh, who’s this guy?’ and they started paying attention as to whether I could be a future national team player," he told Crystal Palace's official website.
“They told me they’d keep track of and see how I progress. Few years later, I am on loan at Cambridge United in League Two, having an okay season and the team is doing well and having a good FA Cup run which had just seen us draw Manchester United for the next round.
“At the time, Ghana had just appointed Avram Grant and he was looking for more European talent and younger players that he could mould during his time in the national team; he was looking for a wildcard talent that could shake things up.
“Meeting up with the 30-man squad was totally overwhelming at the time, and during that period before the tournament there are two cuts down to 27 and then down to the final 23-man squad.”
The ten 23-year old was a hit at the Nations Cup as Ghana reach the final only to lose to Ivory Coast.
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