Coach Ibrahim Tanko has rued the errors that caused the late goals Ghana conceded in Sunday’s 3-2 over Congo in their TotalEnergies U23 African Cup of Nations opening match.
The Black Meteors conceded two injury-time goals after taking a three-goal lead in the 90th minute.
And Coach Tanko says though his team won the game, the technical team will work on avoiding such errors in subsequent group games.
“I am happy we won but I am very angry about my players and to concede two goals after 90 mins is unacceptable. We have a day to prepare for the next match”.
“Congo did very well. We started well in the first 20 minutes, but they dominated the rest of the first half. We brought on two substitutes and got our goals but are not happy about the two goals we conceded”.
“Some of the players showed tiredness, and I was not happy with the body language of some of the substitutes. We will address these things, and we hope that the next game will be better “.
“We are going to watch the game again and see where we fell short and prepare for the next game”, Coach Tanko stated at the post-match press conference.
Black Stars Head Coach Chris Hughton is in Rabat to support the team as the nation aims to secure one of the three tickets to participate in the 2024 Olympic Hanes Men’s soccer competition in Paris.
Coach Tanko stated that he is happy with the presence of the Black Stars Head Coach and added that it will boost the morale of the team.
“We are happy to have him in the team. We have been exchanging ideas with him. He is the head coach of the senior national team and that’s where some of these players will go from here, so we are happy to have him here”, he said.
Ghana will face Morocco in the second round of the Group stage of the competition on Tuesday, June 25, 2023, and Coach Tanko is confident that his team will prepare well for the game though its just two days away.
“Both teams won our opening games, so we are going to prepare well for the game and ensure that we get good results”, he added.
Tuesday’s match will be played at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium and will kick off at 9 pm (8 pm GMT).
