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Benjamin Akakpo: Black Stars 2; Portugal 3 – My Take

Baba Rahman is waste! I’ve never liked his style of play. He “singlehandedly” cost us 2 goals. No surprises Chelsea have had him on a loaning ping-pong. With better options, I wonder why he gets to play. Maybe, as Otto Addo said concerning Joseph Paintsil, not only he does these selections – so we did our usual biased things – and there we have the result!

Our loss of concentration is a major problem. Sloppy losses of the ball in critical areas is another major concern. Our midfield is shambolic. If we don’t plug those holes, the South Koreans, for example, who play very fast football, could cut us to shreds!

Partey was MIA. I guess we should start letting such players warm the bench and let those who actually show gall and turn up in big matches play. Maybe that will make a difference and make these “big players” realise you can be big at failure – but if you aren’t “big” in our “big matches,” you’re small and fungible!

Dede showed up. That proves why we need his experience and aggression – even if he’s now a bit of an old man – football-speaking.

Otto Addo’s changes, I feel, were a little ill-timed. The Portuguese wasted no time unsettling us right after that. Otto has a lot of work to do in that respect. Unfortunately for us, the World Cup is not the stage for trial and error.

The positives? We’ve scored Africa’s first 2 goals at the tournament; we didn’t suffer a whitewashing – even while facing the world’s 9th best team; and we saved face for Africa.

Would that Iñaki had netted that last-minute steal to cap it all off! That would have been a real sucker punch! We would have stolen Portugal’s thunder! Alas! Wishes aren’t horses and beggars don’t ride! In the end, though, let’s face it: Portugal was the better side. Our lack of proper preparation, an incisive mindset and poor decisions on the pitch (both coaching staff and players) were our undoing. Let’s work for better against Uruguay and South Korea.

God bless Ghana!

Source: Ghana News

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