The football association boss met the Black Stars to interact with them before they left Accra for Cape Coast for the World Cup qualifiers
Ghana Football Association president Kurt Edwin-Simeon Okraku has charged the Black Stars to make name for themselves ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers to be played over the weekend.
Okraku met the players on Tuesday at the Swiss Spirits Alisa Hotel in Accra before they departed for Cape Coast to continue with their preparations for the double header.
Ghana will host Ethiopia in the Group G opening day fixture on Friday, September 3, 2021 at the Cape Coast Sports Stadium before they depart to South Africa three days later to face Bafana Bafana in Johannesburg.
‘’I just have a few words to share. I think all of us here have been waiting this moment, a moment to correct our history, a moment to put out names in Gold, a moment to make our individual families and our good selves proud. It’s a moment I have been awaiting for as the leader of this family, because perhaps this is my very first time,” president Simeon-Okraku said.
‘’And it’s a moment each one of you should be looking up to if you are a top player. If you are a top player you need to belong to the topmost platform in football. If any of you is not a top player, this is not the door, its means you don’t belong to this platform that confront us beginning on Friday.
‘’If you are a top player this is the time. If you call yourself a top player the World Cup is the biggest platform you can think about as a career – where all the big players assemble and show what they are made of. If you are a top coach this is the time to show. In the same vein, if you are a top manager this is the time to show.
‘’The preparations towards the games start from here. It’s so important that each one of us will keep our minds firmly focused on the end vision. The end vision is to qualify to the mundial and that is why we are all challenged to be part of that massive platform.
‘’It won’t only take my effort, your effort or the effort of the Technical team to take us to the promise land – But our collective effort.
‘’That is why when you are selected on Friday, you have to go and play as a unit. It will not be easy but each one of us has the responsibility to encourage each other right from the blast of the whistle to make our dream real.
‘’Again it will not be easy but when we stay as a unit we will go through this battle. We believe we have enough quality – we believe we are the best and that believe must be translated into good results on Friday and on Monday in South Africa.
‘’The Government of Ghana has absolute believe in this squad. We are Ghana – we may not be the richest but we are rich on the pitch, we have talents and we have to show what we have. We are very happy that all of us have responded positively to this national course.
‘’As you leave here to Cape Coast, let us remember that team work wins and its only team work that will take us to the promise land. On behalf of the football family I wish each one of you the very best’’ he added.
The game against Ethiopia has been scheduled to kick of 7pm on Friday.
Ghana after qualifying to the 2006, 2010 and 2014 editions of the World Cup missed the last one held in Russia and the country would relish to stage a comeback.