Stars v DR Congo: Time for revenge!

Local Black Stars coach, Maxwell Konadu, says he is fired up by a strong desire to rewrite the scripts at the African Nations Championship (CHAN) by guiding the national team to win the tournament and become the first squad to achieve that feat.

On Sunday Konadu hopes to take his side a step further to achieving that dream when Ghana meet DR Congo, runners-up in Group D. The match will be a repeat of the final of the maiden CHAN tournament in Côte d'Ivoire which the Congolese won 2-0.

After Ghana defeated an enterprising Ethiopian side 1-0 to qualify as Group C winners, Konadu is confident his ever-improving side will rise to the occasion on Sunday in Cape Town.

"Nobody gave us a dog's chance to get this far but the boys have proven that when the going gets tough they can rise to the occasion, accept the challenges and move on.

"We know what's at stake and we are going to map up the needed strategy to defeat them," the coach told Graphic Sports at the team's Protea Willow Lake Hotel in Bloemfontein.

Despite coming under criticisms for his team's failure to stamp their authority on the tournament and sometimes struggling to win by slim margins, the coach seems unruffled by the criticisms and is instead buoyed by what he believes is a steady improvement by his undefeated team.

"I can see improvement match after match, beginning with the WAFU to the CHAN even though more is expected of the [players]. In every single match we've played here our player wins the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award which attests to their quality. The most important thing is topping the group with a win."

"I'll be very happy to win because no Ghanaian has won it before. Where we've reached here [quarter-final] is a massive improvement over our last CHAN campaign [Ghana made a first round exit after losing all three group games at the 2011 tourney in The Sudan].

"It's not going to be easy because other teams here are using their full national teams, but we're going to do our best," assured Konadu who finds himself in good company at the tournament with his Black Stars boss, Kwasi Appiah, around to give him both moral and tactical assistance.

He admits Appiah's presence in camp and at training has been of immense advantage not only to him but also to the team in general.

"Appiah has given me all the support here. He promised the team a handsome winning bonus and we won. He immediately called me that he had sent for the money to be brought to the players.

"Tactically and technically he's been supporting me at training and in camp where we share ideas.”