Fatau Dauda, assistant coach of the Black Stars, sheds light on his choice to pick Asante Kotoko goalkeeper, Frederick Asare, over Dreams FC's standout player, Solomon Agbasi, for Ghana’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers.
Asare earns his second Black Stars call-up due to his impressive performances in the Ghana Premier League, despite Asante Kotoko's inconsistent form.
Competing with Lawrence Ati-Zigi of St Gallen and Jojo Wollacot of Hibernian, Asare's selection sparks questions about Agbasi's continuous omission, despite his stellar display in the Confederation Cup.
Dauda explains, “Well, I have about five or six local goalkeepers in my books which I’ve been communicating with them. Their goalkeeping coaches, every week after a game, I take report, I just wish we can invite all these goalkeepers but it’s about decision and when there was the FIFA [International] break, we had 10 days in Morocco ti prepare for those two matches [against Nigeria and Uganda] and these goalkeepers were there and then we tried them, we took them through a lot of tactics so the coach [Otto Addo] have a good idea about them,” he said in an interview with Delsoka on YouTube.
“These are qualifying games and you can’t try a player now, the only time sometimes you can try a player is when you are going to play a friendly game so I am very hopeful maybe another time when there’s a friendly match, we will give another players it goalkeepers chance to play”
“So these goalkeepers, I’ve been monitoring them both locally and foreign, they are in my books, I take data from them so we have a lot of goalkeepers who can play for the national team in the future,” he ended.
Ghana, aiming to bounce back from a sluggish start, gears up to face Mali and Central Africa Republic in June, eyeing maximum points after a win and a loss in the qualifiers.
With the training camp set to commence, the Black Stars are poised for an intense showdown in pursuit of World Cup qualification.
