Ghana cannot afford to miss CHAN 2018

Ghana’s Black Stars B play host to their Burkina Faso counterparts in the return leg qualifier for the 2018 African Nations Championship on Sunday amid high expectation by Ghanaians for the team to claim the qualifying ticket.

Six months after the Black Stars returned from the Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Gabon disappointed, Coach Kwasi Appiah will seek to rekindle Ghana’s hopes by leading the home-based national team to qualify for Africa’s second-tier competition reserved for players plying their trade on the continent.

A respectable 2-2 draw with Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou last Sunday puts the Ghanaians at an advantage to qualify for Kenya 2018 if they avoid defeat or a very high scoring draw which would give their opponents the edge on the away goal’s rule. However, complacency could become Ghana’s toughest opponent on Sunday if the players go into the match thinking qualification is a done deal because of the home factor.

Last week, Coach Appiah’s charges twice took the lead but allowed the home side to score the equaliser and it exposed the defensive frailties of the team which Appiah and his assistant, Maxwell Konadu, admitted and promised to work on. The invitation handed to Accra Hearts of Oak’s Vincent Atinga and Asante Kotoko’s Ahmed Adams were indicative of Appiah’s determination to plug the loopholes in the team’s rear guard.

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However, the Burkinabes will be emboldened by their fight back at the August 4 Stadium in Ouagadougou and would be expected to go for broke in Kumasi in search of an upset or a high scoring draw in the worst-case scenario to sneak through from the group at the expense of Ghana.

Lately however, Ghana’s northern neighbours seem to be holding their own against their once bogey side, having beaten the Black Stars in their last two competitive matches, the most recent being the1-0 win in the third-placed match at the 2017 AFCON in Gabon.

Six years ago, Ghana eliminated the Burkinabes on a 1-0 aggregate in the qualifiers for the 2011 CHAN tournament, holding their opponents to a scoreless draw away before eliminating them with a 1-0 win in Kumasi, and Sunday’s match therefore follows almost a similar path.

The settlement of the team’s bonus structure with a promised payment of $1,500 as qualification bonus should boost the players’ morale to put their best foot forward and fight for victory on Sunday.

It is very important that Ghana make it to the 2018 CHAN for good reasons. In 2009, Serbian coach Milovan Rajevac used the tournament in Cote d’Ivoire as part of his team-building efforts and discovered Samuel Inkoom and Rahim Ayew who played a key role in Ghana’s 2010 AFCON and 2010 FIFA World Cup campaigns.

Similarly, the CHAN offers Coach Appiah an important platform to continue his team-building efforts around some of the Premier League’s outstanding players, some of whom need the platform that Kenya 2018 would offer to get the needed exposure to be ready for bigger challenges in the senior team ahead of the 2019 AFCON in Cameroun.

Qualifying for Kenya 2018 is a must and everybody – management officials, technical staff, players and supporters – must join forces to make it happen on Sunday.