Ahead of their crunch match against Senegal on January 19th, Ghana national team coach Avram Grant spoke to the press about the chances he thought his men had against the Lions of Teranga and the tournament in general. Grant was joined by Andrew Ayew, one of the notable players in the Black Stars squad.
Asked about his general thoughts towards the tie, the Israelite said, “We have a lot of respect towards Senegal, they did very well in qualification, and also on the FIFA rankings they are before [ahead of] us, so we respect them a lot.”
“But we are confident that we can do it; it will be very tough for us, but it will also be very tough for Senegal. We have good players, a young team, many of them playing in big leagues, so it will be a great match, a big challenge for us.”
“Asamoah Gyan is a very good, very important for us; his stats speak for themselves,” continued Grant when asked about the forward, who is absent from the Black Stars’ camp with a bout of malaria.
“Of course we want him to play, but if he can’t play, we think about what we can do. We plan to win the game in any case even though it is a little more difficult on paper.”
“He is a good player, but if he’s sick he’s sick, there is nothing we can do about that.”
The press then turned to Ayew, who spoke positively about Ghana’s 2014 World Cup and expressed a wary confidence about where he felt the team were ahead of their match vs Senegal.
“I think we showed a lot of good football, and we managed to draw against the world champions [although] we could have won that game.”
“There were some little issues outside football but that’s not our problem now. We managed to qualify in a difficult way.”
“In six months Ghana have changed three coaches, so I want to congratulate all the players on the work we made [did] because it was very difficult to qualify.”
“Now that we are in the tournament, everything is okay, we are learning from our new coach and I hope we can achieve something good together.”
Tough but we’re ready: Ghana’s Avram Grant and Ayew ahead of Senegal game
Ghana's Coach Avram Grant & talismanic midfielder Ayew both expressed a quiet confidence ahead of their match vs. Senegal.
