{"id":229478,"date":"2024-10-10T12:07:23","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T12:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/10\/10\/michael-essien-sends-message-to-black-stars-players-ahead-of-sudan-clash\/"},"modified":"2024-10-10T12:07:23","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T12:07:23","slug":"michael-essien-sends-message-to-black-stars-players-ahead-of-sudan-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/10\/10\/michael-essien-sends-message-to-black-stars-players-ahead-of-sudan-clash\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Essien sends message to Black Stars players ahead of Sudan clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ghanaweb.com\/imagelib\/pics\/508\/50864422.295.jpg\" alt=\"Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien\" title=\"Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien\" width=\"295\" height=\"200\" \/> <span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"-webkit-user-select: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; user-select: none;\">\n<p id=\"article-123\">Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien has sent a goodwill message to the Black Stars ahead of their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sudan.<\/p>\n<p>The Black Stars will take on Sudan at the Accra Sports Stadium in the third game of the qualifying series in what has been termed a must-win game for Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the match, Michael Essien took to social media platforms to send a message to the team, urging them to go all out for victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet&#8217;s go boys, all the best today and good luck,\u201d Michael Essien posted on X (formerly Twitter).<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the game, coach Otto Addo has named West Ham midfielder Mohammed Kudus as the skipper of the side.<\/p>\n<p>Otto Addo noted that the forward has been very instrumental and shown leadership qualities, hence the decision to award him the captaincy role.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMohammed Kudus will captain the Black Stars against Sudan,\u201d he said during the pre-match press conference on October 9, 2024, as reported by Joy Sports.<\/p>\n<p>The decision was made following the absence of substantive captain Andre Dede Ayew, who was called up to join the squad, and also his deputy Thomas Partey, who could not join the team due to injury.<\/p>\n<p>The decision has triggered a reaction from Prince Tagoe, who has hailed Kudus for the progress he has made so far.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we have a game, and we don&#8217;t want to say certain things. That is not really important. All that we want is for us to win our game today so that we can discuss the role of the captaincy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause from the time I think Stephen Appiah stopped playing for the Black Stars, I think the captaincy has had a little bit of a problem, but I don&#8217;t want to go into it as of now. I hope, whilst he [Kudus] is the captain for the day, he is going to put his weight in and know that the team right now will be looking at him. So, I&#8217;m sure victory will come,\u201d he told 3Sports.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\" xml:lang=\"en\">Let&#8217;s go boys all the best today and good luck \u26bd\ufe0f\ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udfff\ud83e\udd32\ud83c\udfff https:\/\/t.co\/gJJj4Yp95n<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Essien\u00ae (@MichaelEssien) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MichaelEssien\/status\/1844329008445661655?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 10, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>EK<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien has sent a goodwill message to the Black Stars ahead of their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sudan. The Black Stars will take on Sudan at the Accra Sports Stadium in the third game of the qualifying series in what has been termed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Michael Essien sends message to Black Stars players ahead of Sudan clash - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/10\/10\/michael-essien-sends-message-to-black-stars-players-ahead-of-sudan-clash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Essien sends message to Black Stars players ahead of Sudan clash - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien has sent a goodwill message to the Black Stars ahead of their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sudan. 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