Captain Andre Ayew has acknowledged the difficulty of Ghana’s 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying group but is adamant Black Stars will qualify.

Black Stars are in the same group with South Africa, Sudan and Sao Tome and Principe.  

Coach Kwesi Appiah’s side will open their campaign on Thursday against South Africa before facing Sao Tome and Principe away on Monday.

“Sudan are a very tough team. We have met them a few times. [For] South Africa, we have met them a lot of times. Right now every team has its qualities so we have to block their qualities and use ours because at the end of the day we have great players,” Ayew said in an interview with Joy Sports. 

He added: “We have players who have confidence. We have players who want to prove a point and we have people who just want to die for the nation. We have to realize that we are playing for millions of people”.

“Football is a game of a win, draw or lose but we have to give everything. We have to die. We have to run. We have to play and make sure that at the end of the day we can go home and look at ourselves and say we gave everything we had for the nation”.

“It is not going to be easy. I can tell you that this qualification is going to be very difficult but we will go through”.

The team began preparations for South Africa match on Monday with their first training at the Accra Sports Stadium. 

They will continue their preparations in Cape Coast, the venue for the match on Tuesday.