Ghana is one of the favourites to win next year's Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea.
The Black Stars are currently the 5th highest ranked team in Africa, taking 35th place in the FIFA rankings. A group stage elimination at this summer’s World Cup, marred by disputes within the squad, disappointed supporters.
A relatively good showing in the AFCON qualifiers, where they won three of their six matches and only lost one, finishing top of Group E made for a much better atmosphere within what seemed to be a crumbling squad.
Their history in the tournament also makes for good reading, with the West African team winning the tournament on four occasions. However, their best performance in the past 30 years has only been a second place finish in 2010. They will be looking to build upon 2013’s performance where they fell short at the semi-finals stage to Burkina Faso in a penalty shoot-out.
Ghana’s new coach, former Chelsea boss, Avram Grant can rely on an incredible amount of quality within his ranks to produce results for his promising team.
29-year-old Fatau Dauda will have to fend of competition from a potential return to the team of Adam Kwarasey, which shows that they have incredible quality between the posts.
Meanwhile, the back four is likely to be made up of Jonathan Mensah, John Boye, the inexperienced Jeff Schlupp and Harrison Afful.
In midfield, the main man to watch in this team comes in the form of captain, Andre Ayew. Everton’s Christian Atsu will be adding some explosiveness and Emmanuel Agyemand-Badu brings plenty of experience to the team and may also feature.
It is also possible that we will see Michael Essien and Sulley Muntari return to the team after both have seen more game time at AC Milan. Schalke’s Kevin-Prince Boateng could also bring quality and experience to the team if he can earns a call up after both him and Muntari were suspended during the World Cup.
In attack, the iconic Asamoah Gyan last played in October, but may be relied upon to add to his incredible goal tally of 45 strikes for his country. However, the promising Lorient forward, Jordan Ayew should be the main man up front. Majeed Waris is another likely candidate for a role in the final third.
Ghana have some incredible star quality available to them, as well as an incredible historical pedigree that will make them one of the teams to watch in January and Shakes Mashaba will need to monitor their team developments in order to be prepared for a possible challenge against them.