Agyei pats Appiah for Ghana's success

Black Meteors goalkeeper Daniel Agyei has described coach of the side, Kwesi Appiah as an integral factor in Ghana's gold winning feat at the just ended 2011 All Africa Games.

The U-23 side needed a 4-2 penalty shootout win to edge South Africa to gold in the finals last Saturday after grabbing an injury-time equalizer to tie the game 1-1.

Agyei who converted Ghana's second kick and saved one of the two missed kicks by the Young Bafana explains that, their winning feat could largely be credited to Kwesi Appiah and his technical team.

"I would say his input was about 70% while the remaining 30% was from players," the goalkeeper said.

"They were the ones who kept on encouraging and teaching us how to go about things. I would say without them, probably we would have been kicked out after the first round."

After a difficult start to the competition where Ghana lost 1-0 to South Africa in their opening Group A match, the Black Meteors recovered and marched to the finals, beating hosts, Mozambique 4-3 to advance from the group stage before beating Cameroon 1-0 in the semi-finals.

Looking back to their difficult march to the finals, Agyei explains that, winning gold was just reward for their hardwork.

"I had then just realized the enormous achievement we have made considering no one gave us the local boys a chance and also because of the hardships we went through," Agyei added.