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With all group games at the 28^th edition of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations completed Cafonline.com sat down with Chief Onigbinde the CAF Techinical Study Group member based in Franceville for a review of Group D matches. Chief  Adegboye Onigbinde observed Botswana,Ghana , Guinea and Mali and pointed to the fact that the final positions were only decided on the last group games as an indication that it was a closely fought affair among the four sides. Sixteen (16) goals were scored in Group D compared to fifteen (15) from the other three groups and Chief Onigbinde believes this average is low in general. ¨ There needs to be more constistency from the teams l saw but having said that there were flashes of good football. The teams could improve on their cohesion too. Ghana appears to be the best in this group but perhaps they have come into the tournament with too much confidence. The Black Stars of Ghana have very good players and are a good side but coming together as a team is a different thing.           

 

As for Botswana l think the inexperience affected them , they have some good players and again there was too much concentration on physical fitness and the cohesion was not adequate and that affected them

Guinea have some brilliant players and played some impressive football at times but generally they were too static in their formations, too rigid for example you found their right winger moving along the line throughout and hardly moving into the midfield. Again the team unity and cohesion amongst a set of good players is still to come through.

Mali also have a youthful team with some exciting players blended with a couple of experienced senior players and l must congratulate them for making the quarter finals but they too fall into the general observation l made on team- cohesion being limited. In football my opinion is that any footballer who comes up to show himself as a star you should leave football and play sports like tennis or boxing.Football is a team game and  you must be able to work in the team.. So all in all the competition in Group D was tough and needed the final group games to decide the final standings, meaning that all four teams could have could have qualified or miss out  concluded Chief Onigbinde