Black Princesses coach Yussif Basigi believes the Black Princesses were motivated by the massive support during the final of the African Games Women’s football competition against Nigeria.
Ghana came from a goal down to beat Nigeria 2-1 after Mukarama Abdulai drilled home the winner in the 91st minute at the Cape Coast stadium. Speaking after the game, Yussif Basigi heaped praises on the various supporters groups for turning out to cheer the team to victory.
‘’Looking at the fan base, we could not afford to disappoint them. They came all over the country to support us so physiologically, I motivated them to prepare their minds to go and make the fans happy’’ Basigi told ghanafa.org.
‘’However we saw the weakness of the Nigerian team and they dominated in the first half because it looked like we had some respect for them because they are a good side by all standards so we prepared their minds to move on’’.
‘’I know my players, and if I had done early changes it would have affected the team because the entire team were not finding their rhythm so I had to keep encouraging them and reminding them of what we did at our last training for team shaping so we keep the Nigerians on till after recess’’
‘’During recess, they were reminded once again and pointed out the weaknesses of the Nigerians which I felt worked for us’’.
When the second goal was scored and looking at that time it came, I was very happy for the fans who were cheering the team on right from warm up’’.
‘’Mukarama was criticised for not scoring and she being the one to score the crucial goal made me happy because a lot of people didn’t know why I kept on using her’’.
‘’We all know she is a household name and for someone who has been away for more than a year due to injury, we only had to keep using her to motivate her because we know what she can do on a field of play’’.
‘’People ask what my style of play is; I will say I play attacking football. Because even when I am behind, I still open up because I know the kind of players I have, I knew they can equalise and score at any minute so I urged them on until the final whistle’’.
‘’These are young talents from our very own Women’s league and the zeal and fight they put up show how determined the team was to get the Gold medal’’
‘’The people of Ghana and Cape Coast showed the team great support from the group stage through to the final and so winning Gold was the only option to thank them for their support”’.
The Black Princesses will later represent Ghana at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Columbia.
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