{"id":1255077,"date":"2022-11-21T14:38:44","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T14:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/11\/21\/black-stars-will-shock-portugal-on-thursday\/"},"modified":"2022-11-21T14:38:44","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T14:38:44","slug":"black-stars-will-shock-portugal-on-thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/11\/21\/black-stars-will-shock-portugal-on-thursday\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Stars will shock Portugal on Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"718\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/download-5-696x718.png\"   alt=\"Henry Asante Twum\" title=\"Henry Asante Twum\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Henry Asante Twum <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Communications Director of the Ghana Football Association [GFA], Henry Asante Twum, says the Black Stars are focused ahead of their opener, adding that they are motivated to beat Portugal.<\/p>\n<p>Ghana will face the\u00a0Sele\u00e7\u00e3o in their Group H opener on Thursday,\u00a0November 24 at Stadium 974 in Doha.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Ghana being ranked as the lowest side with the youngest team, Asante Twum says the team is motivated by the previous performance of the Black Stars at the Mundial.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>According to him, the Black Stars have enough quality to shock the star-studded Portuguese side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur approach is that we will take one game at a time. We played against Switzerland which was a friendly and we are playing against one of the best teams in Europe,\u201d he said on Asempa FM on the <strong>Ultimate Sports Show.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey defeated France to win the Euros in 2016. They have a star-studded side. Before Spain won the 2010 World Cup, they lost to Switzerland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn our opening game against Italy in 2006, we lost but we won against the Czech Republic and the USA and we are aware of some of these things. The players are motivated and they want to make history. We know it will not be easy. We know that at the World Cup, you will play the best and you will have to be at your best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think our team is that bad because we have some good players playing in Europe and are in top shape. We have a good team that can beat any side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom what I have seen at the training, the team is focused and ready to shock the world on Thursday,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Four days later, the Black\u00a0Stars return to action with a clash with South Korea at the Education City Stadium in Al Rayyan.<\/p>\n<p>Ghana will wrap up their group stage adventure with their much-anticipated encounter with Uruguay at Al Janoub Stadium in Al Wakrah.<\/p>\n<p>The Black Stars, having missed out in the last edition hosted in Russia in 2018,\u00a0will be hoping to improve their performance in Qatar after exiting at the group phase during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"wLQNhtJLMqg\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lost in hardship, how do I navigate my way out - Badwam Afisem on Adom TV (21-11-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wLQNhtJLMqg?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Henry Asante Twum Communications Director of the Ghana Football Association [GFA], Henry Asante Twum, says the Black Stars are focused ahead of their opener, adding that they are motivated to beat Portugal. Ghana will face the\u00a0Sele\u00e7\u00e3o in their Group H opener on Thursday,\u00a0November 24 at Stadium 974 in Doha. Despite Ghana being ranked as the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1231062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[94,6993,1962,95,2415],"class_list":["post-1255077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-black","tag-portugal","tag-shock","tag-stars","tag-thursday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}