Emmanuel Akuoko is not surprised of Aduana Stars maiden victory over Asante Kotoko at the home grounds of the Porcupine Warriors, and has revealed the driving force behind their motivation which aided them to beat Kotoko in Sunday’s premier league fixture.
Aduana Stars, for the first time since they gained promotion to the elite division, defeated Asante Kotoko by 1-0 at the Accra sports stadium, the adopted home grounds of the Porcupine Warriors in matchday 10 fixture of the Ghana Premier League (GPL). The victory and its effect on both teams goes beyond football reasons, considering the political rivalry between the Asante Kingdom and the Dormaa Ahenkro traditional kingdom.
Prior to the game on Sunday, Aduana Stars had never beaten Asante Kotoko at the home grounds of Kotoko, and Asante Kotoko have till date, not been able to even score a goal in a properly orgainised league match in Dormaa, the home home grounds of Aduana Stars. This makes Aduana Stars Sunday’s win over coach Johnson Smith’s side not just unprecedented, but history to forget for the Porcupines. Speaking to Accra based radio Hot FM, Emmanuel Akuoko revealed that his side were aware of beating their rivals away from home for the first time due to the match being played at a neutral ground.
“When we realised that the match was going to be played at a neutral ground, we saw that it’s not a home ground for anybody, Kotoko was just bearing the name as the home team”, Akuoko explained.
Ironically, Asante Kotoko bossed the game with greater percentage of ball possession, but to the 38-year old defender, possessing the ball throughout the game is never a guarantee of victory.
“I believe football game is not played or won with possession, you can possess the ball throughout but if you don’t score a goal it’s unnecessary. So for us (Aduana Stars) any time we made sure we had 10 men behind the ball, we allowed them to play. The most important thing is not to allow them to put the ball into our net, so the only chance we had was the one Samuel Bio put into the net. Last season during the (truncated) league it was the same Samuel Bio who punished them, so for yesterday we knew we will win the match at all cost and break that jinx between us”, he stressed.
