Ghana and Southampton attacker, Kamaldeen Sulemana said they are still devasted after failing to qualify for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations but added they will play hearts out to redeem themselves with qualification to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The 22-year-old has been struggling with injuries for quiet a while now and failed to feature in any of the games in the qualifiers series last year but has now recovered fully hoping to rediscover his form.
Currently at club level, Kamaldeen's Southampton have sadly been relegated from the Premier League with seven games to spare having endured a torrid season, remaining rooted to the bottom of the league table since early November. The club has managed just one win in their last 20 matches, sealing their early exit from the top flight.
Despite the team’s struggles, the mercurial winger has been one of their brighter performers, making 19 league appearances so far and scoring one goal this campaign.
Speaking in a latest interview on Showmax, the Right to Dream Academy product described how precious the AFCON is to him and his remaining Black Stars teammate and that they take so much proud from playing in the competition
This explains how heartbroken they became after missing out on the continent's biggest football tourney but are looking forward to qualifying to the main Mundial as Ghana currently lead Group I in the qualifiers with four games to go.
"We are very disappointed. There are no words to describe how sad we feel. We really missed out big time, and this is a huge blow for the whole country.
"Even though we are doing well in the World Cup Qualifiers, our failure to qualify for AFCON is still in the back of our minds. How did we miss out on AFCON, miss out on a local one like this? AFCON is so different from every other tournament, and we take so much of pride in taking part in AFCON, so we are greatly disappointed.
"Obviously Ghana hasn’t won AFCON in a long time, and we really want to take it home, so we are really sad we haven’t qualified.
"We also didn’t perform well in the last two AFCON tournaments, so we were hoping to make this year a great one. We as players take the blame and take full responsibility for not qualifying, and we have apologised to the country and our fans. We want to do well in the World Cup qualifiers and in the World Cup," he concluded
Kamaldeen Sulemana will most likely leave Southampton at the end of the season and seek a new challenge elsewhere as he hopes to make coach Otto Addo's squad for games against Chad and Mali in September.
