Ghana beat Nigeria to booked their place in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 finals, but the Black Stars never had it on silver platter, according to coach Mas-Ud Didi Dramani.
The Black Stars were held by Nigeria to a 0-0 drawn game in the first leg at the Baba Yara sports stadium, but shocked the world with after holding the favourites Nigeria to a 1-1 drawn game in Abuja during the return leg to secure qualification on away goal advantage.
Speaking to ghanasportspage.com on how Ghana beat the Super Eagles, Black Stars coaching staff, Didi Dramani revealed how the technical team of the Black Stars were surprised by the Nigeria technical team, using an unexpected formation and tactics. According to him, Ghana expected Nigeria to approach the second leg in a particular formation [4-4-2], but they were shocked to see them appear differently.
“How we knew the Nigerians in terms of when they are with and without the ball, nothing changed in the first leg”, Didi Dramani told ghanasportspage.com. “We know them very well so our aim was to tactically pick the right position and our aim was to try and control the game, that was our game plan and the strategy was as much as possible not to concede, and to try to create chances and score”, he explained.
“Unfortunately we didn’t score and then we did not also let in a goal which meant it was good”, he added.
However, the approach in the second leg nearly backfired for Ghana, after the Augustine Eguavoen led technical team of Nigeria shocked the Ghanaian technical team, led by Otto Addo with a completely different system, which nearly broke the Ghana team down in the first half.
“But I think in the return leg the Nigerians surprised us in terms of how they appeared; instead of appearing in the 4-4-2 that we have seen them or 4-4-1-1 that we had seen them, they appeared in a 1-4-1-4-1 (4-5-1) with two centre backs, and then they had Etobo as the sitting holding midfielder, and they had Frank Onyeka as well as Aribo who plays for Rangers, along with Lukman and Dennis in the wide areas, and they had Victor Osimhen leading the attack”, Didi confessed.
“That was how they surprised us that’s why they caused problems in the first half. We also came with our 4-3-3, still working to build up with thee at the back and to press in front with 4-2-3-1 formation, pressing with the [number] 9, trying to cut them off and then force them to one side to the wide areas so that our wingers and full backs can double at the wings”, he expressed.
“So we struggled in the first half picking this position, but in the second half we thought about varying our system to stop their wing full backs so that was why you saw us make three straight substitutions; taking out Jordan, taking out Fatawu and taking out Baba Iddrisu, and bringing on Kofi Kyere, and bringing on Boakye Yiadom and bringing on Elisha Owusu, and this changed everything into where we started to build up with five and then dropping the wing backs and also working on the back five so that our wing backs will deal with their full backs and then we stopped them and then we dominated them”, he added.
