Barreto Counting On Strikers For World Cup Games

Black Stars coach, Mariano Barreto and his technical team are looking feverishly to adding goal getter Isaac Boakye and two other strikers to his team while Ghana prepares for their second World Cup qualifying match against South Africa on June 28.

Strikers Ibrahim Tanko and Asamoah Gyan are the other two players whose availability, together with Boakye's is a major source of worry for the national cause.

All three players are currently in the country but are reported to be nursing minor injuries, which could heal, hopefully before the Bafana Bafana game.

Boakye's two lethal strikes against Burkina Faso in Mali 2002 sent them packing out of the tournament and qualified Ghana to the quarterfinal of that competition before finally being booted out by Nigeria.

Many are convinced his presence in the Ouagadougou match would have had a psychological impact on the Burkinabes.

On Monday the technical team met for a considerable length of time, concluding that fitness was the major ingredient lacking in the Stars play in Ouagadougou.

The meeting, according to sources close to the meeting, took a post mortem of the Burkina Faso match with a view to avoiding pitfalls that may have contributed to the loss.

But that headache apart, the technical team is also concerned that the Ghana Football Association would get the Ghana League Clubs Association to agree to the suspension of the Kinapharma Premier League after Wednesday's games to facilitate adequate, uninterrupted camping and training session for the Black Stars.