Ghana’s Sports Minister Kofi Adams picks positives from Kirin Cup despite two defeats

Ghana’s Sports and Recreation Minister, Kofi Adams has urged patience and calm after the senior team’s two consecutive losses in the 2025 Kirin Cup.

The Black Stars suffered a 2-0 defeat against the Blue Samurai of Japan at the Toyota Stadium in the first encounter on November 14 before a 1-0 defeat to South Korea four days later at the Seoul World Cup Stadium in the final day fixture.

Ghana head coach Otto Addo has come under sharp criticisms after those twom poor results but Kofi Adams believes the platform has given the German trained tactician a fair idea of his plan ahead of the World Cup.

Kofi Adams makes case for fringe players’ friendlies

“I would have wished that we won but with friendlies while you want to win is also not for you to win alone [but] you are also there to try to see weakness that you may have in the team and the strength of the team,” Kofi Adams told Radio Gold.

“It’s also [an] opportunity to try new legs because there were some people who were part of the team that you never had the opportunity of using because you were playing competitive qualifiers and so you didn’t want to take any chances.

“Maybe those sitting on the bench were even better than those who were playing so friendlies like these give you opportunities to put in those other feet to see that they are really ready to take responsibilities when others are in or not.

“So we’ve tried them [and] we’ve seen some coordinated play and I believe that it gives the coach the opportunity to re-design his strategy and so yes we didn’t win but I’m not disappointed.”

Ghana qualified for its fifth FIFA World Cup after topping Group I with 25 points from 10 qualifying games and are awaiting the final draw on December 5 at the John F Kennedy Centre of Performing Arts to determine their group opponents and the host city.

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