Ghana Must Exploit Egypt's Goalkeeping Weakness- Coach Opeele

Isaac Opeele Boateng identifies Egypt's weakness.

Ghanaian coach Isaac 'Opeele' Boateng has told the Black Stars to take full advantage of the 'weak' goalkeeping department of Egypt in the crucial 2014 World Cup playoff.

The Pharaohs are without their experienced goalkeeper Essam El Hadary for the first leg match of the playoff tie against the Black Stars on October 15.

Coach Bob Bradley has decided to keep faith with Sherif Ekramy in post for the crucial game despite his known frailty in handling long-range shots.

Ekramy is also very deficient in handling aerial balls and the Ghanaian coach wants the Black Stars full of players with good shots on them to take full advantage.

“Ekramy has a problem with carpet shots especially on his right side,” Boateng told Metro FM.

“He is unable to grab ferocious strikes at once so the Black Stars with players endowed with shots like Kwadwo Asamoah, Michael Essien, Sulley Muntari and the like must take full advantage of this deficiency.

“Ekramy is also not good with aerial balls and this is where I think the full backs will be very vital in supporting the attack with quality crosses for Asamoah Gyan and others to nod in the goals.”

The Ghana U17 assistant coach again says the swift Black Stars attacking machinery could be a huge advantage over the sluggish Egypt defence marshalled by captain Wael Gomaa.

“I reckon this will be a very good game for someone like Abdul Majeed Waris who is very quick. He can use his pace over the very slow Egyptian defenders like Gomaa and [Mohammed] Naguib.

“The experience and skilful Asamoah Gyan will also be very vital but then the blueprint to beating Egypt is to keep on testing the goalkeeper and using pace over the slow Egyptian defence.”