Boateng brothers won’t be distracted, says Ayew

Andre Ayew says team-mate Kevin-Prince Boateng will not get distracted when he meets his brother Jerome on the field when Ghana face Germany on Saturday.

While Kevin-Prince was born in Germany, he opted to represent the Black Stars at national team level but his brother Jerome plays for die Mannschaft and they will line up against each other this weekend.

Ayew has experience of playing directly against younger brother Jordan in Ligue 1, where the former continues to play with Marseille, while the latter spent the second half of the season on loan to Sochaux, and he says it will not be an issue at Fortaleza’s Castelao stadium.

"It’s not the first time [at international level] he’s played against his brother, he had that experience four years ago," Ayew told the media. "And he plays for Schalke, so he plays against him for Bayern, so it won’t distract him at all.

"When I play my brother, it’s something fantastic. It’s not often that players get the opportunity to play against each other at this level."

Ayew does not feel his team need to alter their style for this encounter, explaining that aside from the start and end of the USA match, which they lost 2-1, they played a good game.

"Ghana is just going to be Ghana," he stated. "The Germans are talking about our physicality, but we know we are also technical. We have a lot of qualities.

"We went into the US game with a lot of determination, despite losing a goal early. We just need to change the first five minutes and the last five minutes and we would have won. We have a lot of experienced players in the team, but the mixture is good.

"In 2006, we lost the first game and went through. In 2010, we won the first game and went through with four points.

"No one put us under this pressure; we put ourselves under this pressure so we need to get through strongly.

"We are ready to go out and die for our nation – we’re going to do everything to make our people proud."

The Marseille player’s father was nicknamed after Brazil legend Pele, but Ayew was keen to stress that the host nation of the World Cup has not yet produced any fond memories for him.

“This is my first time in Brazil and it has not given me anything – it could give me qualification to the next stage!”