Ghana Given Boost With Essien Return

Ghana have been given a major boost in their preparations for the second group G match against latest Germany with the news that former Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien has returned to training. The AC Milan midfielder has been suffering from numerous injury problems in the last five years. This even made him take a voluntary break from international football. However, his return has been a major boost for the national team at the World Cup 2014, although results have not been positive. They lost their opening match against United States 2-1.

Further, Essien suffered through injury in this match and was forced to watch the training session from the sidelines ahead of the Germany match. The 31-year-old, though, was part of the Thursday training session and is likely to start against Germany. Ghana manager Kwesi Appiah was blamed for the 2-1 defeat against the United States, as he left out key players like Kevin Prince Boetang and Essien from the match. Despite finding the equaliser late on in the match, they allowed the United States to score winner in the 86th minute.

This has put them at a serious disadvantage event that they face group favourites Germany. Should Ghana suffer another defeat, they would be out of the tournament. Hence, this is likely to bring out a positive response from the team. "It's not going to be easy to qualify from the group, but we'll give everything to do just that. We're going to have to play well against Germany and I know we'll give them a good game," said the Ghana manager regarding the injury situation and the current status of qualification troubles.

Ghana have been one of the top teams from Africa in the last decade after having reached quarterfinals in the last few editions, but face group stage elimination this time around.