Ghana forward Richmond Boakye Yiadom says it an honour to be compared with legend Asamoah Gyan but feels there is a lot more to be done to get to the level of the former Captain. The Beiter Jerusalem forward was speaking to the media in Cameroon on Thursday ahead of Ghana’s Africa Cup of Nations Group C game against Gabon.
Boakye Yiadom who made his Ghana debut in August 2012, has scored six times in 14 International appearances and is one of the strikers available for Milovan Rajevac in this year’s tournament despite making a cameo appearance in the defeat to Morocco on Monday.
Read on for the full transcript:
On lack of goals in the Ghana team
I think there are a lot of players in front. Sometimes in football, things don’t go as expected. We have Jordan, Benjamin and I and as I said the first game didn’t go well. We couldn’t get the chances to utilize them but I think against Gabon, something good will come out and I think we are going to score. As a striker I believe when the first chance is missed, you need to focus on the second chance and we are here to score a lot of goals and I believe tomorrow we will win the game, the striker will make an impact for everybody to see.
On referee mistakes
There are a lot of people watching the game; and football is a game of hearts. There are millions of people who watch and support their team from home so the little mistake you make is going to cause a lot of problems so many teams. So I just hope they will be able to fix whatever has been going on, they are also human and they make mistakes but they should be careful with the decision they make. A wrong decision can take a team home and the right decision can take a team to the final so all that I want to say is, they should make sure they make the right decisions because you cannot change it when the mistake is done and those at home who support the team with their heart suffer for nothing so I hope they make amends on such mistakes.
On comparison with Asamoah Gyan
I have heard it a few times but I had a couple of injuries when I came back from China and it slowed me down a little bit. But I believe that to get to the level of or half what Asamoah Gyan did, you need consistency in the national team as he had. And there has to be believe, everybody who supports the national team has to give the support that the team needs to improve. Because you don’t use one day to improve on something, it needs time. When you give us time and focus on two, three, four strikers and keep them and work on them. At least we may not be able to get to where he reached. But we may be able to do half of it. All I ask from everybody who supports the national team is to believe in the players and the team and be positive towards the national team and be able to give positive energy to the team to achieve what others did. It’s not everybody who can take the negative comments in the media, for me I can take it but there are some players who can’t, and when they hear such things their spirits go down and it kills them. So for me to be compared with Asamoah Gyan is an honour but I am still young, I still have more time to work on myself, all I ask is for everybody to give us support to achieve something for the nation.
On team morale ahead of Gabon
I think the morale in camp is okay. Our mind set is to beat Gabon. I always believe that the downfall of a man is not the end of his life and we have been training very hard. We know what is in front of us. From home, the over 30 million people are very expectant so we being here to participate in the tournament is not just to partake in it but to win and so the agenda is to be I make sure we get to the final. Whatever happened against Morocco is past; we are focusing on tomorrow’s game which we need to win to take the three points home and I think each and every player has the mind set to take the points so that is what we are thinking about.
On players taking criticism from Ghanaian fans
It’s our duty to take criticism. As I said, I don’t know what the other players take it and how they take those things. I was speaking for myself and for those who are not able to hold these things. Losing the first game was always going to bring criticism. For me I see these things on social media as a wakeup call but players who have not been at this level may take it differently and it could affect them on the pitch. But for me, I always believe that if you are not being criticized then it means there’s something wrong because you cannot do everything 100% so the moment you see them say something it means they want to help you. May be they don’t have the opportunity to communicate to us personally but to pour out these things make us believe that the people expect us to improve so I don’t have any negative feeling about it but I don’t know how the other players may take it.
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