Milovan Rajevac
Ghana returnee coach, Milovan Rajevac, has described his side’s 2022 World Cup qualifier 3-1 win over Zimbabwe as a good game.
He has however, admitted that the Stars had problems, particularly after recess, hence the ‘strategic’ substitutions.
The Stars opened the scoring in the first half through Ajax’s Kudus Mohammed but the Zimbabweans canceled it from the spot.
The Serbian reshuffled his cards and succeeded in scoring two additional goals to claw all points.
The win places them in second position, with six points, just a point adrift the current leaders – South Africa.
The Stars, who flew out of the country on a chartered flight, are hoping to pick all the points in the return fixture as well tomorrow.
The coach said after the game: “All in all, it was a good game after the result we had. We started the game well but later in the match we had some problems, especially in the second half and we conceded a goal but I managed to identify some of the problems and to make the right substitution so we came back and won.
“We were lucky at some moments of the match but the most important for us is that we got three points and our hard work has paid off.”
He added: “We faced some difficulties in the start of the second half, especially our first block couldn’t do their task very well and there was a lot of pressure, especially with the king balls on our defence, so it was important to make a decision to introduce Baba Iddrisu especially because of the second balls so it was important to improve that area.
“It was a tactical decision and it proved a very good decision for us and affected the team in a right way so I’m in this situation you have to be able to see and identify problems and make right decisions. I think all of them did well and definitely at one point it was difficult to keep up with the rhythm but we eventually managed to overcome these problems and to come back and score another two goals and win this game.”
Ghana play as guests of Zimbabwe tomorrow in Harare.
By Kofi Owusu Aduonum