Preparations Under Way

In order to facilitate preparations for the African Cup of Nations, coach Claude LeRoy has arranged for the Black Stars to play local Abu Dhabi team Al Nasr in a friendly match this afternoon. This is more for LeRoy to gauge how is players are doing and to make last minute changes to his squad. The deadline for naming the squad is today, and typically, LeRoy is taking his time. He will wait until after today’s game to trim his squad to the final 23 men.

Edit: The game against Al Nasr has been canceled! Apparently the Abu Dhabi team had to pull out at the last minute. However, Ghana have yet to announce their squad.

LeRoy can boast a nearly complete group of players now that his four EPL players – Michael Essien, Sulley Muntari, John Paintsil, and Richard Kingson – finally joined him last Monday. The only player still missing is Sammy Adjei, but his circumstances are a bit extenuating at the moment.

More good news for the Black Stars is that Laryea Kingston has passed a fitness test and will be cleared to play. The Hearts player picked up an injury last year and was written off as unable to participate in the tournament, but to the delight of his team and coach, he’s recovered more swiftly than expected. Even better is that both Asamoah and Baffuor Gyan have recovered from light knocks and are now training normally.

FIFA has given the green light to Quincy Owusu-Abeyie. Abeyie played for the Dutch U21s but has decided that he wants to play for Ghana at the senior level. There was bit of a hold up over his paperwork, however. FIFA will allow a player to change nationalities only once, and that is only if they hold dual nationalities and are under 21. The reason it took FIFA so long to come to a decision had to do with when that paperwork was submitted.

Of course nothing can compensate for the loss of Stephen Appiah, but LeRoy is hoping that the crowd can compensate. In fact, some believe that without Appiah, Ghana might even emerge as a more cohesive team, sort of like Arsenal post-Thierry Henry. Because Appiah will be missing, it will force the squad to work harder, work together, and perhaps something new can be born.

At any rate, besides national pride, the Black Stars have an additional incentive to win the trophy at home – a fantastic bonus package for the stars. The exact numbers haven’t been released yet, but the package is said to be very inspiring.

Because sometimes, there is no motivation like money.