Ghana blanks drawing start to focus on Mali

Ghana bring closure to their opening draw with DR Congo and now focus on the next challenge as they bid to progress at the Africa Cup of Nations, according to coach Kwesi Appiah.

The Black Stars allowed the Congolese to tie the Group B game 2-2 on Sunday after shockingly allowing a 2-0 lead to slip.

But Appiah has urged his side to look ahead to their match against Mali on Thursday rather than dwell on their opening game.

“Yesterday [Sunday], the players met to try and find out what happened. It was like a forum where everybody had to say what he thinks,” Kwesi Appiah said.

“They tried to psyche themselves up. We have also had discussions. The most important thing is after today[day after the match], we don’t want to talk about Congo anymore.

“We need to concentrate on the game ahead of us. And we started the psyching already and everything is working very well.”

The lesson handed out has given Appiah some ideas about his team and he believes they can recover from this setback.

“It’s always good that you look at your team and look at where there are loopholes and stop them from scoring,” he said.

“Once you are leading and concede two goals, it’s not the best but normally what you need to do is to psyche everyone up.

“It’s important that whatever happens, you put it behind and look forward to the next game, which is very, very important. You learn from it and develop from there.”

Ghana play Mali, leaders in the group on Thursday at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.