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Soccer News of Monday, 9 September 2002

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Stars Coach Blames FA For Defeat

...Half of the team will not get recall
The coach of the national team, the Black Stars, Millan Zivadinovic says the team’s loss to the Cranes of Uganda on Saturday was caused by the Ghana Football Association’s failure to organize some international friendly matches in preparation for the clash.

The coach who predicted a win for Ghana, criticized the Football Association for canceling two European training tours he proposed ahead of the tie.

"The Ghana Football Association was so slow in working out friendly matches, and when I organised some, they failed to help me take the team."

A two-game tour of Turkey was called-off due to travel problems, and a friendly against Yugoslavian side, Obilic was also cancelled.

The Black Stars, four times African champions boasted twelve foreign-based professionals led by Brescia’s Stephen Appiah, while the Cranes had only one foreign-based player.

Zivadinovic, however conceded that the game is always an unpredictable one and called for diligence in the build up towards the remaining matches.

Half of the team will not get recall -Coach

After the Black stars 0-1 loss to the Ugandan Canes,Black Stars Coach Milan Zivadinovich has been firing some salvos of his own.

The new Black Stars coach who was earlier confident that his team was going to win against the cranes despite his own botched preparations says half of the team that went to Kampala will not be called back into the Black Stars team.

But many analyst feel that the coach is firing salvos in the wrong direction, mainly because the Black Stars failed to prepare adequately for the Ugandan match whiles the Cranes had been on the drawing board mapping out strategies to shut out the Black Stars.

The Cranes scored the only goal of the game eight minutes into the second half through Philip Obwiny last Saturday.

The game was Stephen Appiah's first game as the Black Stars captain.
For beating Ghana, the Cranes would receive 5miilion Ugandan Shillings as promised them by Ugandan Company, Gapco.