2018 FIFA W/C QUALIFIER: Poor preparations caused Ghana – Augustine Arhinful

Ex Ghanaian International, Augustine Ahinful blames Ghana’s failure to beat Uganda in the world cup qualifier to lack of proper preparations.

Arhinful mentioned three key areas which caused the black stars to draw goalless in her first world cup qualifier game against Uganda in Tamale last Friday, in an interview with Kasapa sports.

“In two or three day’s time before the match, I saw the players coming to train driving in their cars (non-residential camping), what was the arrangement? Did someone refused to pay for their hotel bills to go straight to camp when they arrived from Europe? Because some players arrived Sunday and others on Monday evening, so why can’t they be in a common hotel? The black stars I know, ahead of any major important assignment will camp in a hotel and come to training with the team bus, this is complete failure on the part of all stake holders.”

Secondly, we knew about two months ago or more that we will play the game in Tamale, what did we do about the pitch before the game. In fact when I saw the pitch I felt sad because it was an international match, so for two months, we were not able to put the pitch in good condition before the game, who are those people in charge? How can we even attack the coaches’ tactically or technically when you play on this poor pitch?

Finally, across Africa, Ghana was the only country that played her qualifier on Friday, am asking myself that looking at the temperature and humidity in Tamale, who fixed the match at 3:30pm? Knowing very well the European weather has started changing, Tamale is not bad, but couldn’t we have played at 5:00pm? Where the weather could have dropped down a little, because the temperature was around 35 degrees in Tamale when we were playing.”

Nevertheless, Arhinful says going forward we should make sure that in the future we don’t repeat this non-residential camping act in an all important game like this one.

Moreover Ghana will continue her 2018 world cup qualifier on 7th November, 2016 against Egypt.