CHAN fever grips Stars

With barely a week for South Africa to unveil yet another continental football showpiece, Coach Maxwell Konadu has released his final 23-man squad with a strong conviction that the men he has chosen for Ghana’s campaign will finally clinch the Africa Nations Championship which enters its third edition.

The Black Stars emerged runners-up at the inaugural competition hosted by Cote d’Ivoire in the cities of Bouake and Abidjan in 2009, but the second edition also held in South Africa proved disastrous for the Ghanaians as they ended that campaign without a single point.

This year’s competition kicks off on Saturday, January 11, and ends on February 1, 2014.

Konadu released his final squad two days after a training tour of Namibia, making four casualties of his final list. Among the four who failed to make it into the squad was Hearts of Oak midfield machine, Moro Abubakar, who failed to make it into the squad that featured in the recent GOtv WAFU Cup tournament hosted by Ghana. 

Also dropped were striker Richard Gadzie of Cape Coast Ebusua Dwarfs, Heart of Lions midfielder Edmund Owusu Ansah and Wa All Stars’ Joshua Otoo. 

Included on the list was New Edubiase’s playmaker, Asiedu Attobrah, whose exclusion from the regular squad at the last WAFU competition raised eyebrows. Attobrah, arguably the most exciting player in the Premier League, got included as Koandu also kept faith with three top scorers in the Premier League namely; Seidu Bansey, Sulley Mohammed and Samuel Afful.

The home-based national team are currently fine-tuning in Windhoek, Namibia, ahead of the competition. 

The local Black Stars begin their campaign in Group C, which also includes Libya, Ethiopia and Congo.

Final squad

Goalkeepers: Stephen Adams (Aduana Stars), Foli Adade (Medeama), and Isaac Amoako (Asante Kotoko).

Defenders: Godfred Saka (Aduana Stars), Tijani Joshua (AshantiGold), Francis Morton (Ebusua Dwarfs), Kwabena Adusei and Abeiku Ainooson (Asante Kotoko), Nuru Sulley (Hearts of Oak) and Alfred Nelson (Liberty Professionals) 

Midfielders: Michael Akuffo, Jordan Opoku, Richard Mpong and Yahaya Mohammed (Asante Kotoko), Jackson Owusu (Berekum Chelsea), Theophilus Anobaah (Medeama), Asiedu Attobrah (New Edubiase) Latif Mohammed (AshantiGold) 

Strikers: Sulley Mohammed (King Faisal), Kennedy Boateng (Medeama), Paul De-Vries Asare (Wa All Stars), Samuel Afful (Hasaacas) and Seidu Bansey (Asante Kotoko).