Ghana\u2019s coach, Kwesi Appiah is confident his side will beat the United States in their World Cup opening game, saying past success has given him and the fans fans high expectations.<\/p>\n
For Ghana, the United States is less an obsession than merely one obstacle, a means to an end.<\/p>\n
The Black Stars will open the World Cup against the United States on June 16 and then face Germany and Portugal in their other group-stage games.<\/p>\n
Few of the players admitted to spending much time concerning themselves with the United States and issues like Landon Donovan\u2019s exclusion from the American team or which players would form the American back line.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important game for us is the first game,\u201d Ghana\u2019s captain, Asamoah Gyan, said, a view stated months earlier by United States Coach Jurgen Klinsmann.<\/p>\n
Of the Americans, Gyan said: \u201cIn 2006, we beat them. In 2010, we beat them. This 2014 will be like they are coming for revenge.<\/p>\n
Coach, Kwesi Appiah has called in a 26-man provisional team to a training camp in Accra to prepare for international friendly matches against the Netherlands on Saturday and South Korea on June 9 in Miami Gardens, Florida, USA.<\/p>\n
As at Thursday, only A.C. Milan\u2019s Michael Essien and Schalke\u2019s Kevin-Prince Boateng were absent from camp, and the duo were said to have been given permission by the coach<\/p>\n
Ghana dropped its opener in Germany in 2006 but still advanced to the Round of 16. Four years ago in South Africa, the Black Stars reached the quarterfinals after Asamoah Gyan\u2019s goal in extra time beat the United States. But Ghana missed out on the first semifinal berth for an African team when the former Sunderland striker failed to convert a penalty kick against Uruguay.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ghana\u2019s coach, Kwesi Appiah is confident his side will beat the United States in their World Cup opening game, saying past success has given him and the fans fans high expectations. For Ghana, the United States is less an obsession than merely one obstacle, a means to an end. The Black Stars will open the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[85,60],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4234"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4236,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4234\/revisions\/4236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}