The Black Stars of Ghana will have to break the Cameroonian unbeaten run against Ghana to record their first win of the Totale 2019 African Cup of Nation(AFCON) competition to enhance their chances of qualifying out of the group (GROUP F) and suscribe a spot in the knock phase of the torunament
The Ghanaian senior national team has not been able to defeat the Indomitable Lions since the inception of AFCON. Cameroon emerged as winners of 2017 AFCON in Gabon after beating Black Stars by 2-0 in the semi-finals and went on to win their fifth AFCON title, defeating the Fowls of Egypt in the finals.
The Black Stars have confronted the Indomitable Lions four times from 1982 and the best they have achieved is two group draws while suffering two semi-final defeats. Defending champions Cameroon will start as slight favourites to win the Group F clash in Ismailia Saturday having been the more impressive performers earlier this week.
Appiah is not overly concerned with the two dropped points against lower-ranked Benin because Ghana are traditionally slow starters at the Cup of Nations. They always recover and boast a record of six consecutive top-four finishes from 2008, including finishing runners-up twice.
He was upset by the dismissal of veteran Boye, believing his time wasting should have earned a verbal warning rather than a second yellow card. Cameroon centre-back Ambroise Oyongo, one of four starters against Guinea-Bissau who were part of the 2017 title-winning team, says they must improve against Ghana.
But looking at their previous performance against the Squirrels of Benin which ended at a 2 all, some Ghanaians expressed mixed feelings about the Black Stars , having their hopes high in the athletes to break the long lasting chain of losing to the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.
According to the optimistic thoughts of Ghanaians, looking at the kind of players Ghana is blessed with, they have all it takes to defeat Cameroon in the upcoming match which most Ghanaians are happy the two key players which were benched in the opening game with Benin, the General Captain, Asamoah Gyan and his assist, Kwadwo Asamoah will be allowed to be in the starting eleven.
Speaking about the pessimistic thoughts of some Ghanaians about the reasons why Ghana would be beaten by Cameroon, they drew their conclusion from the poor performance and conduct the Black Stars put up in their opening game with the Squirrels.
They said, taking for instance the bad conduct of John Boye, the defender for Black Stars, and the poor performance of the mid-fielder, Mubarak Wakasu and others, didn’t end the Black Stars well in the game, they think the same attitude would the put up in the upcoming game in Saturday thereby causing their own defeat to the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.
Ghanaians therefore hope and believe that the Black Stars headed by Kwesi Appiah would correct all lapses in their first game and march on to win the game against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.
(Written by: Abigail Horlali Dorgbetor, Student Journalist).
