Ghana coach Kwesi Appiah has defended the selection of his personel that lost 1-2 to the USA in the Group G World Cup opener on Monday.
Appiah has come under pressure for his selection but insists he made the best decision with his choices.
The coach, first Ghanaian trainer to ever qualify he Black Stars to the World Cup said of starting the likes of Daniel Opare at right back and Jordan Ayew upfront while others like Kevin Prince Boateng warmed the bench.
“Kevin is a good player and I wanted to introduce him in the first half to change the game in our favour. We started to play with the 4-4-2 tactics and saying that, Gyan and Jordan combined very well at training and that is why we started them”.
Appiah said ” I make the decisions and I think every player will like to start too.”
On his choice of Opare, he said “In actual fact, during our training sections before the South Korea game he (Opare) was used a lot but he got a muscle problem. But after that he has been playing well at training and looking at him, I thought he was in a better shape in terms of supporting the attack.”
Ghana lost to USA for the first time in eight years following previous victories at the Germany 2006 and South Africa 2001 tournaments.
The Black Stars play Germany in a second group game in Fortaleza on Saturday.