Ghana will bounce back - Avram Grant
Black Stars coach Avram Grant is confident that his team would bounce back strongly and qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in spite of their shaky start to the campaign which saw the Stars being held to a scoreless draw by The Cranes of Uganda in Tamale last Friday.
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According to Grant, his players have the quality and the mental strength to qualify for Russia 2018 and was positive the Stars would win their next match against the Pharaohs on November 7 in Egypt.
“Our next match for the 2018 World Cup qualifier would be against Egypt. It is a tough game away but we are going to win that game,” said the Israeli trainer in a post-match interview.
Despite dropping vital points at home, Grant was highly optimistic about his team’s qualification to their fourth straight World Cup.
“We have five more games to go and even in the African Cup of Nations qualifiers we lost our first game, but we were able to qualify for the tournament and got to the grand final of the competition but only to lose on penalties,” he told the media.
Grant explained that the Ugandans approached the match with a mindset to play a defensive game, but his players gave of their best, even though they were unable to put the ball at the back of the Ugandan net.
“We created enough chances in the game but we could not put the balls behind the net as compared to our opponents who did not create any chance. It was a difficult game. I will say we were unlucky and we tried to find the solutions but it was not easy”, Coach Avram Grant stated.
Grant indicated also that some off-the-field events in the run-up to last Friday’s clash had a negative impact on the team, as his players needed the peace of mind to play. Nonetheless, he was not ready to speak to those incidents which he claimed might have affected the team negatively.
The coach praised his players for their efforts and also defended his decision to start Jeffery Schlupp, Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu and Abdul-Majeed Waris from the bench.
“When we fielded this player you will say, ‘why did we do so and when we keep a player on the bench you will also say why we have done that’. We will do our best to qualify for the World Cup but we need the total support of every Ghanaian to do that both on the pitch and off the pitch,” stressed Grant.