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02.02.2006 Football News

Black Stars Still In Shock

By Graphic
Black Stars Still In Shock
02.02.2006 LISTEN

Players and officials of the Black Stars can still not believe they have been bundled out of the 25th MTN Africa Nations Cup currently going on in Egypt.

Barely 24 hours after that infamous elimination masterminded by The Warriors of Zimbabwe, the Ghanaian contingent was yet to recover from the shock as the Daily Graphic visited the team's hotel yesterday.

And to add salt to injury, neither players nor officials seemed to know when they were going to leave Egypt, though they had their luggage ready to return home.

Perhaps for fear of being victimised, most of the players did not want to share their sentiments in spite of their long faces.

The only player who was bold enough to break the loud silence was Russia-based Baba 'Armando' Adamu whose renewed confidence obviously stemmed from the spectacular goal he scored against Zimbabwe in last Tuesday's game.

For Armando, he thought he had finally been vindicated by that performance after being sidelined in the previous matches against Nigeria and Senegal.

Sources close to the team said Armando was in the initial starting line-up for last Tuesday's match but was surprisingly dropped at the last minute for reasons best known to Coach Ratomir Dujkovic.

But the skilful midfielder who brought some fire into the Stars' game against Zimbabwe at the restart was happy to have proved his critics wrong.

Some officials of the team who pleaded anonymity have attributed the Stars' misfortune to the fact that the Stars did not have good substitutes.

To put it bluntly, they thought some players did not deserve to be among the final 23 picked for the tournament.

That to them, was the reason why the Stars put up a poor show when it mattered most last Tuesday after some key players were knocked out by injury.

Meanwhile, five players of the Black Stars have already left for their various bases.

The players who left last Wednesday include the Israel-based trio of Sammy Adjei, Emmanuel Pappoe and John Paintsil.

The others are Laryea Kingston who has secured a one-year loan deal with Russian champions, Locomotiv Moscow, and Saudi Arabia-based Godwin Attram.

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