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Ghana vs Benin Match Preview

Rajevac to kick-start Black Stars last World Cup qualifying round in style

Group D favorites Ghana resume their World Cup qualification campaign with a single game at home to Benin on March 29th.

The selection of the squad
Coach Milovan Rajevac has already chosen his 22-man squad which all the same includes skipper Steven Appiah and Inter Milan’s Sully Muntari despite rumors that they might be left aside from the team that will face Benin later this month.

Michael Essien returns for Ghana after quickly recovering from the knee injury he sustained last year against Libya. The 26-year-old Chelsea midfielder is on fire, scoring against Juventus on his first start since coming back from injury, and providing the Blues a vital 1-0 win against Manchester City five days later.

Rajevac’s squad will look quite different from the Black Stars team that played in CAN 2008 under former boss Claude Leroy, or even the one that he used in their last qualifier against Lesotho.

Hoffeinham’s defender Isaac Vorsah got a call up (and this certainly came in consequence of his German club’s astonishing success in the Bundesliga ) while Rahim Ayew – who featured in the Local Black Star’s squad for CHAN – will enjoy his first game under the senior national team’s jersey.

Everyday-injury-victim Asamoah Gyan should also make his first appearance in the national team since the Africa Cup of Nations where he had to pull out of the rest of the tournament plagued. However, it still has to be decided whether he will be granted a first XI line up after being branded as Ghana’s worst and most hated player.

The club’s top scorer Junior Agogo is out of the 22-man squad, making way for others such as Hapoel Tel Aviv’s Samuel Yeboah and Udinese’s Kwadwo Asamoah while Prince Tagoe has been handed the opportunity to impress more as Ghana is in search of a true number 9.

Speaking to the media, Coach Rajevac explained his choices:
“There is a little bigger list that we can choose from but I have my list.

“Even though I have some players in mind, in football there would be changes as always because of loss of form and injuries,” he stated.
“There will always be special players. These are players who have to do something different for the team at different times. They play special roles for us.”

The importance of a good start
The Ghanaian people are eying nothing else but a victory against their West African neighbors Benin. The GFA wouldn’t tolerate any slip-up after being drawn in what arguably looks like the easiest group of this last round in the African zone.

Ghana almost suffered a shocking exit in Round 2 after losing 2-0 to Gabon and 1-0 in Lybia; but then, they managed to finish top of their group by defeating Lesotho 3-0 at home.

Defeat in the hands of Cameroon during CAN 2008 sank their dream of being African Champions on home soil. The wound of this incident still bleeds in Ghanaians’ heart; the nightmare is still alive in their heads.Qualifying for the World Cup has therefore become an even more imperative quest.

The pressure on Black Stars’ manager

His fellow countryman Ratomir Djukovitch managed to send the Black Stars to their first ever World Cup finals, can he continue from where Ghana left off?

Milovan Rajevac is under intense pressure to deliver at the expectation of the Ghanaian people. The Serbian coach, who doesn’t have much support, is still struggling to integrate himself with the country’s culture and after failing to lead the Local Black Stars to glory in the just-ended CHAN tournament in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghanaian fans are calling for him to be sacked.

However, Rajevac still benefits of the Ghanaian FA’s support who does not believe yet that sacking the Serbian manager will help the country in their bid to become successful.

Local names like Selas Tetteh who won the U-20 African Cup of Nations tournament in February are just around the corner, which increases the pressure on Milovan Rajevac.
“I want to set up my team for the first World Cup game against Benin,” the Black Stars coach said.

“That’s an important game we have to win and it’s also important to have a large pool to work with,”
Winning against The Squirrels of Benin is a must for the coach to silence his critics and kick-start Ghana’s last round of the qualification campaign on a good note.