NEWS
Kalusha Bwalya says Ghana can surprise Portugal at the World Cup
Africa football great Kalusha Bwalya says Ghana’s Black Stars can surprise fancied Portugal at the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
Bwalya said this when giving his expert analysis on SuperSport TV in the build up to the World Cups kick-off on Sunday.
Ghana open their Group H campaign with a dance against the Cristiano Ronaldo-led Portugal, who are among the pre-tournament favourites.
The former PSV star observed that African teams often struggle at the World Cup due to inferiority complex.
“Sometimes, we always think that the Europeans are very high, that they are supreme,” Bwalya said.
“We have that defeatist attitude as Africans to look at them and say: ‘oh we are playing against Portugal’ ‘oh we are playing against France.”
WHAT GHANA SHOULD FOCUS ON
The Zambian football legend said Ghana should focus on their strength and have self-believe instead of giving Portugal too much respect.
“Ghana is very strong; they can go there and dish it out against the best in the world. I feel that they have chance in the first game to get a result,” he said.
The former Football Association of Zambia president stressed the importance of Ghana’s winning start to the competition.
“It is only three games and the first game is very important in a tournament,” Bwalya said.
“If you lose the first game then hand breaks are out. You expose yourself, you go in the next game, you risk everything then you are your way back.”
WHAT GHANA COACH SAID
Ghana coach Otto Addo said he was encouraged by the Black Stars showing in the last warm up against Switzerland.
“It is really good for the players to see that we can score like this but also in terms of creating chances,” he said.
“I think we were good. It is not about set-pieces all the time but also the way we played, we went deep, we had the right timing for the deep runs, good positions in between the lines.”
The Black Stars beat the Swiss side 2-0 on Wednesday. Ghana’s other group stage matches are against South Korea and Uruguay.
Ghana are representing Africa at the World Cup alongside Cameroon, Senegal, Tunisia and Morocco.
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