Kwesi Appiah Had Selection Wrong – Robert Sackey

US-based Ghanaian technical brain, Robert Sackey, has attributed the Black Stars’s 1-2 loss to the USA to Coach Kwasi Appiah’s failure to start veteran Kevin-Prince Boateng and Michael Essien in last Monday’s crucial Group G opener, among other technical errors.

“Our starting line-up gave US confidence as they were very worried about Kevin (Boateng) and Essien,” a disappointed Coach Sackey stated in an interview with the Graphic Sports yesterday.

“They (US) knew we were slow starters so they wanted to get an early goal and defend, and they did get it,” he revealed.

Beyond that selection blunder, Coach Sackey who scouted the US during Ghana’s maiden Mundial appearance at Germany 2006, thought Ghana’s scouting of the USA this time around was woefully inadequate.

“I think we didn’t do enough scouting work on the US team as they [Ghanaian officials] relied more on video analysis as compared to 2006 where we monitored them from April to June.

“We overlooked the US because we had beaten them twice; the same mistake the then US manager Bruce Arena made in 2006,” he stressed.

Another factor which Coach Sackey said did not help in our preparation was the lack of quality friendly matches to prepare the Stars for their group opponents.

“We also didn’t have enough quality friendly matches to prepare the team for the type of opponents in our group,” he added.

Coach Mas-ud Didi Dramani was detailed by Kwasi Appiah to scout on the Americans ahead of the World Cup.
– See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/sports/football/25437-appiah-had-selection-wrong-robert-sackey.html#sthash.SS5eR9wJ.dpuf