Ghana coach Otto Addo has emphasised the importance of the international friendlies against Nigeria and Uganda insisting it provided the team a lot of answers to many lingering questions.
Upon his return as coach of the national team, the Dortmund talent coach failed to record a win in the March friendlies succumbing to a 2-1 defeat to the Super Eagles of Nigeria as well as settling for a 2-2 against the Cranes of Uganda.
While these matches are expected to set the stage for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in June 2024, Otto Addo believes a lot can change within the next months given his observation from the friendly matches.
While he is counting on some key players who missed the trip to Morocco due to injury to return in good shape for the crucial assignment, he believes, the friendly matches shedded light on some problems within the team and how to solve them.
“From now until June, we will observe the players; we will have a lot of talks also with players,” he stated after the Uganda game.
“We hope that key players from this team will come back to have a strong squad in June and then we attack again.
“Like I said we got a lot of answers to a lot of open questions in these two matches. Positive but also negative answers I have to be honest and from there we will go and see like when these seven, eight, nine men who weren’t there today are back, you could have a stronger squad and this stronger squad have a big, big task to beat Mali and Central African Republic.
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Meanwhile, Ghana remain winless in the last seven games with their last victory dating back to November 2023 against Madagascar at the Baba Yara Stadium when they opened their 2026 World Cup qualification with a win thanks to Inaki Williams’ late header.
Ghana will face Mali and the Central African Republic in JunOtto says he got answers from Nigeria, Uganda gamese when Otto Addo will have begun his official 34-month contract as a permanent Black Stars coach.
The team will also be rubbing shoulders with other African nations in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers in subsequent games.