Former Black Stars captain, Stephen Appiah, was the master brain behind Ghana’s 2-0 victory over the Czech Republic in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, John Paintsil has disclosed.

According to John Painstil, the respected Black Stars captain who hanged his boots a few days ago masterminded Ghana’s victory over the then 2nd best team in the world even though the technical team also played their role.

“After our first loss to Italy, Appiah called all the players for a meeting after dinner. He told us we can’t afford to lose the game against Czech and that we must not disappoint Ghanaians. We could see how serious he was and we felt that we needed to play the game for our captain”, Paintsil said.

“We respected Appiah and could not afford to see him worried. He told us we need to make ourselves proud and the look on his face was enough to compel us to win the match”, Paintsil added.

“The determination on Appiah’s face was such that we did not even think that Czech were second on the Fifa rankings at that time. We forgot about the likes of Rosicky, Nedved and Kohler. All we knew was winning the game”.

The Maritzburg United defender was however quick to add that even though the coach tried to psyche them for the game; they were already poised because Appiah had done it the previous day.