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Ghana EPL trio to miss USMNT friendly

The upcoming U.S. Men’s National Team friendly against Ghana will surely be hotly contested, but some missing players may remove a bit of the sting.

The Ghana Football Association stated that West Ham, Swansea City, and Leicester City have requested the exclusion of Andre Ayew, Jordan Ayew, and Daniel Amartey respectively, reports KweseESPN. The teams have stated that their players require rest and won’t allow them to participate as the match falls outside of regular FIFA international dates.

“The clubs have written to us to say they want the players excluded so that they can rest ahead of the start of next season because the dates do not fall within the mandatory international window,” GFA vice-president George Afriyie told KweséESPN. “We effectively have no choice in the matter.”

The absence of three of Ghana’s most vital pieces will take a bit away from the friendly between two competitive rivals. The match is the first between the two teams since the USMNT’s 2014 World Cup victory over their unusual nemesis, and serves as a prelude for this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Comments

  1. This game was always going to be a clash of domestic leagues. The US will be without the vast majority of their European players (Cameron, Brooks, Fabian, Pulisic, Chandler, Yedlin) same as Ghana. Guess we’ll see how well MLS Stacks up against the African Leagues.

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    • Still a lot of players from Euro clubs listed on their roster, but those may be pulled as well as we get closer. Plus the three from Crew SC. I don’t know how many other Ghanaians there are in MLS but Lloyd Sam and Poku (now with Miami FC in NASL) played for Ghana when the held a friendly in the US two years ago.

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      • Not just this game program but how USSF seem ignore USNT (Men side/bread earners) is being properly prepare in general (like World Cup, Gold Cup Olympics etc…). USNT fallen behind because the USSF.

      • Scot you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of how international soccer works. USMNT has either played a qualifier or friendly during ever FIFA match date for at least the last five years probable closer to 15. Over the last year and a half the U20s, U19s, U18s all the way down to U15s have been competing in both domestic and international tournaments against top countries with camps every few months (the kids do have to go to school). Yes we missed the ConfedCup and the Olympics but so did 95% of the World. That isn’t the schedulers at USSF fault that’s the managers and players who lost the one game they needed to win to reach those events. The USMNT teams problem isn’t they aren’t adequately accustomed to the international game, it’s that they aren’t as good as about 15-20 teams. How’d you get better by earning time at your club and playing meaningful minutes in a 30 to 40 match season not convening and playing meaningless friendlies once a month.

  2. The date and time and location of the upcoming friendly ( along with other contextual information) would be helpful info to provide context for this article.

    Like… “When The “Black Stars” of the Ghanaian national team meat the US on _____, they will be without some of their veteran players. _______, _________ and _______ will be unavailability for selection due to ______ being outside of the FIFA calendar. The match in _____, _____ will be the first meeting of these two emerging powers since _______ which ended in a ___ – ____ win for the US.

    The next meeting in _____, _____ promises to be great tune up for the ______ even if a bit of luster is removed with the omission of these players. ”

    Love this site! Critiquing only cause I care not simply to be a critical voice.

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    • Agree. It’s a bit annoying to have to go another site to get basic information after reading an article on sbi. It’s a trend that continues

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    • Agreed, love this site but they are desperate for an actual editor to read everything before it is posted. Slow down and get it right, we will be here!

      Reply

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