By Felix Abayateye
Ghana's World Cup at the Brazil 2014 FIFA tournament kicks off in Natal on Monday night with as many as 16 players who made history in South Africa four years ago now on the sidelines.
These include the entire backline of goalkeeper Richard Kingson, Hans Adu Sarpei, Lee Addy, John Paintsil, John Mensah, Isaac Vorsah and linkman Anthony Annan with the attacking support of Prince Tagoe, Matthew Amoah, Dominic Adiyiah and Stephen Appiah, who skippered the team even though back in Coach Kwasi Appiah's corner on special duties mission in Brazil.
But this development poses no major worries for Coach Appiah, then assistant to Serbian Milovan Rajevac, and under whose watch now the Stars have undergone the radical changes in team membership.
Therefore, a virtually new team, but with seven powerful members that made the 2010 squad tick, namely skipper Asamoah Gyan, Andre Dede Ayew, Sulley Muntari, Kwadwo Asamoah, Samuel Inkoom, Jonathan Mensah and Kevin-Prince Boateng, will be carrying the hopes of the nation in Brazil.
Without doubt, the current backline appears the weak link in Coach Appiah's tactical formation going into Monday night's match.
But the experience gained by Inkoom and Jonathan Mensah against the USA in Ghana's 2-1 victory at the Round of 16 in South Africa and the experiment of playing Kwadwo Asamoah at the left side of defence are expected to come in handy and may prove vital in the Stars' cause.
Operation beat Ghana this time, has been heard loud, clear and wide enough as the battle cry of the American marines, now being led in tactics by German Juergen Klinsmann and not Bob Bradley who got dispensed of after the debacle of South Africa.
It is the belief of the Americans that what their own countryman, Bradley, twice could not do against Ghana at Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010, can be done by their German employee.
But for curious World Cup observers, Klinsmann himself failed with the German team when they hosted the 2006 tournament.
If wishes were horses, the Americans would have been riding high at every tournament just as they do at their favourite rugby or American football.
