Ghana’s Black Stars Face Mexico At Bank Of America Stadium On Saturday

CHARLOTTE, NC – African soccer powerhouse Ghana Black Stars are set to face the Mexican Men’s National Team in a MexTour match at the Bank of America Stadium in Uptown Charlotte on Saturday, Oct. 14. Following this match, the Black Stars will compete against the United States of America on Tuesday, October 17, 2023, at GEODIS Park in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Black Stars, four-time African champions, are using these two friendly encounters as part of their preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers and the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations tournament. The match will be played during the FIFA window, allowing both teams to call up their top squads.

Head coach Chris Hughton, alongside his technical team, has called up 23 players. He oversaw the team’s first training session on Tuesday, which had 19 players in attendance. The training took place at the Charlotte FC training facility on Tuesday evening, laying the foundation for the team’s preparations leading up to their first game against Mexico.

The players, consisting of Richard Ofori, Abdul Manaf Nurudeen, Lawrence Ati-Zigi, Alidu Seidu, Kingsley Schindler, Nicholas Opoku, Stephan Ambrosius, Gideon Mensah, Joseph Aidoo, Joseph Painstil, Salis Abdul Samed, Antoine Semenyo, Ernest Nuamah, Ransford Konigsdorffer, Jordan Ayew, Elisha Owusu, Inaki Williams, Edmund Addo, and Thomas Partey, engaged in an intensive one-hour training session in Charlotte as they gear up for their forthcoming match against Mexico. 

The team’s preparations received a boost as Jerome Opoku joined the camp on Wednesday, further enhancing the squad’s depth and readiness for the exciting, friendly encounters that lie ahead. The English-born defender received a late invite as a replacement for the injured Brighton and Hove Albion right-back Tariq Lamptey.

Mohammed Kudus also joined the Black Stars camp in Charlotte as preparations continued for the international friendlies against Mexico and the United States of America. The West Ham United midfielder’s arrival increases the number of players in camp to 21 as coach Chris Hughton fine-tunes his squad for the games.

Kudus scored his first Premier League goal over the weekend in the game against Newcastle United. The former Ajax player will face West Ham teammate Edson Alvarez in the game on Saturday.

The Black Stars will be without key players Daniel Amartey, Alexander Djiku, and Osman Bukari.

The Black Stars bring its own Charlotte connections to the contest. That begins with the Sister City relationship Charlotte has with Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest metropolitan area, since 1995. It has grown, as Charlotte has over the past three decades, to include a population with Ghanaian roots that now measure in the thousands.

Former U.S. Rep. Mel Watt was a champion of the Sister City relationship along with former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot, who signed the agreement. Watt said they searched “to find a country and a city that had some commonalities with the city of Charlotte and North Carolina. There was a lot of textiles and furniture manufacturing going on in Kumasi and here at that time.”

A delegation from Kumasi, led by Mayor Samuel Pyne, was in Charlotte last year to help grow the civic and citizen bonds between the two cities. He returned this summer, attending a dance performance sponsored by the Ghanaian Asanteman Association of the Carolinas.

Having the Black Stars in town is a big deal for transplanted Ghanaians.

Robert Sagoe moved to Charlotte from Ghana 12 years ago, and though he considers himself an American now, the country of his birth and its national team will always be part of him.

“For them to come over here and play the Mexican and U.S. national teams, I am so happy that Ghana is going to be part of soccer in America,” he said. “Ghana wasn’t in the limelight until we qualified for the World Cup.”

The first time was 2006 in Germany. Four years later, in South Africa, the first World Cup to be held on that continent, Ghana made it to the quarterfinals after beating the USA 2-1 in extra time on Asamoah Gyan’s 93rd-minute goal in the Round of 16. They lost to Uruguay on penalty kicks but became only the third African team to reach the final eight of a World Cup.

That was a massive achievement for Ghanaians around the world, said Segoe, who compared it to the Super Bowl, World Series, and NBA championship combined.

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