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'No half-fit players at AFCON 2013' - GFA

By Ghana l Myjoyonline.com | Benedict Owusu
Cup of Nations 'No half-fit players at AFCON 2013' - GFA
NOV 13, 2012 LISTEN

The Ghana Football Association has assured that Black Stars Coach Kwasi Appiah will name a squad with players who are 100 percent fit for the Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa next January.

This assurance comes with the history of incidents where players taken to major previous tournaments such as the Nations Cup were injured.

There are glaring examples in Shila Illiasu who was limited to the bench throughout the 2008 Nations Cup hosted in Ghana and the Angola 2010 Nations Cup where half-fit Michael Essien, who was then the acting skipper, aggravated a knee injury during training ahead of Ghana's game against Burkina Faso.

But according Ibrahim Saanie Daara who speaks for the Ghana Football Association, keeping half fit players at the Black Stars camp will be a thing in the past.

“If you go into a tournament with half fit players you will not be able to get the best out of them so as such the coach and his technical and medical team will be making sure that, any player who is taken to the tournament is absolutely fit to play in the tournament,” he told JOY Sports.

“We want to assure Ghanaians that if indeed there is a player injured there will be adequate replacement for that player”.

Ghana will play Cape Verde in Lisbon as both sides prepare for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa in January.

Ghana is drawn in Group B of the Africa Cup of Nations and they will face DR Congo, Mali and Niger.


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