Black Stars head coach, Otto Addo, has defended his decisions in Ghana’s 3-2 defeat to Portugal at the 2022 World Cup as tactical.

The Black Stars fought hard to settle for a 3-2 defeat against Portugal as Cristiano Ronaldo scored the opening goal of the match via a penalty.

However, minutes after Andre Ayew and Mohammed Kudus collaborated to restore parity for the Black Stars, coach Otto Addo decided to make changes to the game and substituted the players.

Speaking after the game Otto Addo said that his changes were purely tactical.

“First of all it was a tactical change, Ayew had a yellow card and I was afraid that he couldn't go hard to do it the way I wanted it, so I took him off to bring in a fresh player so I don’t think it really had a big impact because at that moment, it was actually 1-1,” Otto Addo said.

He stated emphatically that the “referee was not in our favour” after awarding a very bad penalty and failing to penalize Portugal for similar actions Ghana committed.

Touching on why some African teams have not won a game yet at the World Cup, he said “I think the circumstances of Africa having only five teams makes the probability lower, if you have Europe with 12/14. Africa has less spot which is not fair.

According to the coach, “We have a chance [to qualify] because South Korea played a draw and if we win and maybe Portugal will win hopefully against Uruguay then we might be second.

Ghana’s next match is on Monday, November 28, 2022. at 1:00pm.

Watch Otto Addo’s post-match interview below:



JNA/BOG