Assistant coach of the National Under 23 team Micheal Osei has explained the reason for featuring most of the foreign-based players against Algeria despite arriving late for the game.

Ghana needed a late penalty from Dauda Mohammed to snatch a late 1-1 draw with their Algerian counterparts at the Accra Sports Stadium.

The technical team have since come under a lot of scrutiny after dropping most of the local players in favour of the foreign players who arrived late for the game.

Speaking on the decision of the technical team, Micheal Osei explained lack of competitive games in Ghana inspired the decision of the coach, he also admitted the foreign-based players didn’t perform to the expectations of the team in the game against Algeria.

“In the previous games we all saw how the foreign-based players performed and their performance was very good qualifying us to the next round so we were expecting the same performance today, it didn’t happen.”

“There are no competitive games going on in Ghana so that’s another factor because you need your players to be very active going into such games”

The team will fly to Algeria on Sunday for the second leg which comes off on Tuesday, September 10. Winner of the game will qualify to the under 23 AFCON in Egypt.