Assistant coach of the Sudan national team, Ignatius Osei Fosu, has said the training pitch they used in Ghana was “not good”.
Sudan, whose head coach James Kwasi Appiah and assistant coach Osei Fosu are both Ghanaians, are aiming to upset the Black Stars.
Ahead of Thursday’s encounter at the Accra Sports Stadium, Osei Fosu said their preparations have so far been good but lamented the poor state of the St. Thomas Aquinas Park, where his team trained.
“Preparations have not been bad but our only problem has been with the training pitch. It’s not been the best but we’ll take it like that,” Sudan’s assistant coach said at a pre-match press conference.
“We’ve not trained at the Accra Stadium yet, but what we were given at the St Aquinas is not good. If the pitch at Accra is anything close to what was given to us at St Aquinas, then we are going to see some awful football.”
Meanwhile, Mohammed Kudus will captain Ghana for the first time when the Black Stars face Sudan in the AFCON qualifiers.
This was confirmed by Ghana coach Otto Addo during his pre-match press conference at the Accra Sports Stadium on Wednesday.
All three of Ghana’s captains are currently unavailable, with stand-in captain Thomas Partey pulling out of the squad earlier this week due to a medical issue.
Substantive captain Andre Ayew has not been invited to the national team since March, while Daniel Amartey has also been dropped for the clash against Sudan.
Jordan Ayew has widely favoured to take up the armband, having previously captained the team in the absence of the other skippers.
However, it appears the 33-year-old is now behind Kudus in the pecking order when it comes to the Black Stars captaincy under Otto Addo.
