We are potential World Cup winners, says confident Ghanaian FA chief
He believes it’s the Black Stars’ destiny to be crowned world champions on July 11 in Johannesburg, following their first-up 1-0 victory over Serbia last Sunday.
“Our performance against Serbia should tell everyone that we are indeed a World Cup-winning team,” a confident Nyantakyi said.
“Except Brazil who won the World Cup when it was played on another continent, it has always been the norm that a country from the host continent won the trophy.
“At this World Cup ... it will happen again, and it is no secret that we are the torch-bearers for Africa.
“The whole of Africa seems to be looking up to us and we cannot let them down.”
He said the Black Stars were bracing themselves for an onslaught from a desperate Socceroos side smarting after their embarrassing 4-0 loss to Germany in Durban.
“It will be wrong for anybody to assume that they are walkovers because they lost 4-0 to Germany,” Nyantakyi said.
“We are therefore not going to leave anything to chance.”
Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac is expecting attacking Australian trio Harry Kewell, Mark Bresciano and Josh Kennedy to be used tonight after being surprisingly overlooked by Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek in the defeat to Germany.
“They will give everything and use what that they have and bring their best,” Rajevac said.
“The Australian team is a very strong team. Their performance against Germany did not show the real picture. They can do much better, can run better so I expect them to be much better.”
“For Australia, this is the last chance, so they will give their best. They are a very competitive nation.
For his part, Verbeek insists he has had more difficult weeks with Australia during his two-and-a-half years in charge and is confident of a strong reaction from his players today.
Australia, who will be without the suspended Tim Cahill, currently sit bottom of Group D, but defeat by the Germans against Serbia earlier yesterday has thrown the race for the top two places wide open.
“We have had several training sessions this week and the players reacted very well to the loss against Germany,” the coach said. “We all know the situation now.
“The only thing we can do is win against Ghana tomorrow. I expect a good reaction from the players and have confidence they will do everything to get the three points.”
The Dutchman also revealed they have not done anything differently to counter what happened in Durban, with their preparations following the usual course.
Verbeek continued: “I think we had more difficult weeks during our World Cup qualification, to be honest.
“After we lost against Germany, we knew what we had to do and that’s winning against Ghana. We haven’t changed anything. Tactically we’ve worked on what we had to and if we can win, everyone will be back on three points and it’s open again.”
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