Black Queens coach Mas-Ud Dramani says he is not shocked by Ghana’s humiliating defeat to France but will rather pick the positives from the game.
The women’s national team were smashed 8-0 by the 2019 Fifa Women’s World Cup hosts in an international friendly at the in Reims Monday night.
Dramani, who was recently appointed coach of the Black Queens explains he was much particular about the performance of the new team he is beginning to build.
He describes the general output of the team as “good”.
“I think in football [these kinds of results] are likely to happen when you build a new team. And when you play against an experienced team, you must respect the forces of the opponent,” Dramani said after the match.
“We had our goals, not thinking about the scoreline but thinking about how we wanted to play, [having in mind] what that team went through. This team was just gathered two weeks ago and [you have] professional players who joined us two days ago. ”
“And so the goal was just to get them to play together, to give them the game philosophy, to try to have a positive and useful possession of the ball. [Also] to mix the old with the very young players who have gone through the youth teams. And so, we knew the expectations [there was] to play against a very experienced side, which played many matches. But from my point of view, our performance was good. ”
France vs Ghana – How did you prepare for it?
“This is the third we play against France. In 2012, in Azerbaijan [at the U17 World Cup], we met them in the semifinals. Then, in 2016, in Papua New Guinea [at the U20 World Cup], we met them in the group stage, there were 2-2. So, we know France, and I know that France knows Ghana very well. ”
“But I think we had to control so many parameters, elements we were trying to adjust: the terrain, the weather, the pace of the match … Two weeks is still too young, a period too short to consolidate a team [so] we were very impressed by our performance. At many moments in the match, we did a good job. ”
“[In the first half], of course, you can say we have the energy to move forward. In the second half, a confirmed team will look better, because they have played many matches. We played a very high level match for the first time in a long time. This is the fifth game that I play, and we played against lower level teams. We played them during these two weeks of preparation because I knew we were going to play this high level game. ”
You have followed a generation of players in U17 and U20, is it your mission to bring these players to the senior level?
I think it’s important to get players from the youth level to the senior level. And so those who played in 2012 [with the U17], are now passed to the senior level. These players start to mix with the older ones but understand that it will take time for the mix to be complete. ”
Will Ghana be back in 2019 for the World Cup?
“We are going to host the CAN 2018 in Ghana and so it is important to play some of these very high level matches so that you are athletically as good as possible before 2018. (…) We are very confident that Ghana will be present [in 2019, and] we will qualify for the World Cup [the 2018 CAN will be qualifying for the 2019 World Cup]. ”
