Onalfo Scouts Ghana

Assistant coach Curt Onalfo (pictured) was given the responsibility of scouting Ghana, and SI.com have a short article describing how he went about it, and what he found out.

As well as seeing Ghana play (sans superstars) in the African Nations Cup, he took in the odd friendly and scoured the globe for footage of their World Cup qualifying campaign, even acquiring a handful of DVD’s via an African foods distributor in D.C.

Here are a few highlights of what Onalfo has to say about Thursday’s opponents:

“The strength of the Ghanaians is their attack. When they have a full roster, they have what I would call four world-class attacking players.” Two of these four, Muntari and Gyan will be suspended for Thursday’s game.

On Michael Essien:
“He’s a complete player. He can go forward, he can defend, he’s just been outstanding. Right now he is the most influential player they have, end of story.”

On Stephen Appiah:
“He plays an attacking midfield role. He’s played centrally and wide right for them, but he pretty much has a free role. He’s got a great shot from distance, he’s excellent taking players on one-v.-one, and he’s a good passer of the ball.”

On their diappointing African Nations Cup performance:
“In the African Nations Cup they didn’t have their full team. Muntari, Essien and Gyan weren’t even at the tournament. And you could see it. Ghana, in my opinion, when they have their starting 11, their top 11 are pretty darn good. But once they have to get into their bench, all of a sudden there’s a drop-off. That’s the case for a lot of teams. We feel that they’ve lost two players, we’ve lost two players. I tend to believe our roster is overall, 1 through 23, better than the Ghanaian roster. So they’re going to be really hurt by those two guys who are suspended.”

On Ghana’s speed:
“Certainly we feel they have excellent team speed. We also have excellent team speed. So all you do tactically is try not to get yourself in situations where you’re always in footraces and there’s enormous amounts of space behind you. We’re not changing our whole game plan because of it, but it’s something the players are aware of and our team is ready to combat.”