Faced with imminent sack barely few months on the Black Stars' job, Coach Jones Attuquayefio left Ghana for World Cup qualifier against Sudan in Khartoum this weekend with a heavily depleted team.
The legion of his foreign-based players backed-out of the match at the last minute due to club commitments and Attuquayfio had trouble also raising the home-based players that went with him to Khartoum.
Agency report said that only Turkey-based goalkeeper, Richard Kingston was able to make the team although the Coach hoped that Portugal-based Emmanuel Duah, assistant skipper Samuel Osei Kuffour and AC Parma's Stephen Appiah would join him in Khartoum.
Frustrated, Attuquayfio was forced to compliment his team with Black Starlets' players - Sulley Muntari, Frank Turkson, Dan Quaye, Charles Allotey and Godwin Abdlordey who did not feature in the coach's initial plans.
He confirmed that his top striker, Charles Amoah pleaded to be left out of the Sudan match so as to smoothen a contract with his new Austrian club, Sturm Graz.
Greece-based Peter Ofori-Quaye and Turkey-based Sam Johnson withdrew also due to club commitment while their compatriot Yaw Preko is down with a terrible cold.
Skipper Charles Akonnor initially withdrew but changed his mind on the eleventh hour and said he was ready to join the team in Sudan but had neither received his flight ticket nor knew how to travel to the North African country.
Attuquayfio had a tall order to return Ghana to reckoning in the race for Japan/Korea 2002 World Cup after Liberia had humiliated them by 3 - 1 in Accra, January 28.Ghana and Sudan are tied on the same three points behind Nigeria and Liberia with six points each.
