Black Princesses Head Coach Yussif Basigi has attributed their disappointing defeat to Japan in the FIFA World Cup group game to a lack of focus and mental lapses, suggesting that his team’s failure to maintain concentration throughout the match ultimately led to their loss.
Ghana succumbed to a second defeat as the 2018 champions, Japan, recorded a 4-1 victory on Thursday night.
Ghana captain Stella Nyamekye scored Ghana’s sole goal in the game from the penalty spot in the second half.
“I will attribute this game to a lack of concentration at a point,” said Basigi after the game. “I think we mapped up a very strong strategy against them it worked until the 40th minute then [the players] lost focus in the next few minutes, we conceded, which was not the best.
“Even in the second half, we were able to read exactly what they were going to apply and then we asked [the players] to stay focused and mark them only for them to lose concentration again and unfortunately they had another two goals.”
The defeat to Japan means Ghana has now lost in back-to-back games in the competition after losing to Austria also in their opener.
However, there is still some hope for the team to advance from group stages if they can get all points against New Zealand and hope other results go their way.
This is because of the expansion of the participating teams from 16 to 24 teams for the first time this year, meaning 16 teams would need to make the next round.
“We have to win at all costs. We have no excuse!”-Basigi added
Currently, the Black Princesses are the least-ranked third teams from all six groups after two rounds of group games.
Ghana has lost their opening two games in this year’s competition after defeats to Austria and Japan in Group F leaving them with no points and a goal difference of -4.
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Story by Asack Pius|univers.ug.edu.gh
