Interview: Black Satellites Assistant Coach touches on defeat to Ivory Coast, plan for Niger, return of Percious Boah and more: Transcript

Black Satellites Assistant Coach Augustine Evans Adotey has been speaking to the Communications team of the Ghana Football Association ahead of Ghana’s WAFU U-20 Cup of Nations semi-final clash against Niger.

Ghana will on Tuesday, December 15, 2020 take on the Menas of Niger in the first of the two semi-final games in the tournament.

The Satellites started the competition on a good footing beating Nigeria 1-0 to qualify for the semi-finals, only to lose by the same goal margin to Ivory Coast in their second game.

Ahead of the game on Tuesday, Assistant Coach Augustine Adotey has been touching on approach, the return of Percious Boah, defeat to Ivory Coast and plan for Niger.

Read on for the full transcript:

On defeat against Ivory Coast

Before the game, I was in a chat with a friend of mine who is a coach abroad. We were talking about Ghana not playing well but earning the three points after the game. The end result of a game is about winning. We played well yesterday and lost the game. Against Nigeria, so many fans were saying we didn’t play well but we won. My reaction to this defeat is that, we are all about winning and qualifying to the second round. All though we lost, but I am happy we are through to the knock out stage.

On creativity of team and lack of chances

We all saw what happened this afternoon, it is all about setting objectives ahead of an upcoming game looking at the mistakes and weaknesses spotted from the last game. We want to play compact both in defence and attack and possess both in attack and defence.

On style of play

We also want to attack the wide areas, using the flanks as our strong points and in defense, we want to apply the high, low and medium pressing. Yesterday, we saw some mistakes in terms of attacking play so we made corrections based on what we saw yesterday.

On missing Percious Boah against Ivory Coast

Boah is coming back and in yesterday’s game, we gave the balls away freely. Coming back to our preparation ahead of the upcoming game, we did some rehearsals on fitness especially in the penalty area. But come Tuesday, Boah is playing and its good news for the team.

On return of Boah for Niger clash

Boah’s absence was felt in the last match and it was a clear picture. Abanga played yesterday which is his first international match so you saw there was lots of lapses in his play. Boah has played for a long time and so if he had played yesterday, he would have made a difference.

On approach for Niger on Tuesday

Immediately after the game yesterday, the Technical Director booked an appointment with me together with the Head Coach (Karim Zito) to brief us on how Niger play. This morning, we had a meeting and he gave us tips about Niger’s style of play. He talked us through their style of play, the dangerous players, those with height, how they play, so he encouraged us to map strategy that will see us go pass them come Tuesday. So we will come up with a plan to deal with them and hopefully, we make it to the final.

GFA COMMUNICATIONS