Ghana coach Avram Grant is confident that the national team will make it to the World Cup 2018 despite being given a tough qualification group.
Ghana were once regarded as the strongest team in African football apart from Cameroon. However, the decline of stars like Michael Essien has contributed to the decline of the team in general. Over the years, there have been several managerial changes in the national team and former Chelsea and West Ham manager Grant is the latest one to take charge. Ghana will be up against the winner of the first round of qualification that will take place in October 2015.
The matches for the World Cup qualification will begin in November 2015 for Ghana. After the recent disappointments in major tournaments, the important task forGrant will be to get the team playing in the finals of the World Cup. Ghana failed to even reach the knockout stages of the tournament. Lesotho or Comoros will be the likely opponents for the Black Stars in the second round of qualification. After a string of poor performances in the friendly matches, Ghana returned to form with a 7-1 win over Mauritius in the recent Africa Cup of Nations qualification match.
“It will be difficult but we have a good team. I think the system for Africa is a little bit new to me. We know only the first game and then we know we will go to the group stages. In any case, I think in Africa, all the group stages will be very difficult because it contains a lot of good teams and only less than 10% have qualified. If you compare to South America, 50% of the teams have qualified; in Europe, I think over 30 (%),” said Grant. Ghana have featured in the last four world cups.