Former Black Stars forward, Anthony Yeboah says he still can’t fathom losing the captaincy to Tony Baffoe in the 1992 Africa Cup of Nations finals against Cote d’ Ivoire in Senegal.
The substantive captain Abedi Pele, prior to the final was suspended in the semi-finals, and the armband was expected to be given to Tony Yeboah – the then assistant captain.
But surprisingly Anthony Baffoe was chosen to lead the team ahead of the former Frankfurt forward.
Speaking in an interview with GTV Sports Plus, Yeboah expressed shock about how the events unfolded.
“To be honest I was very surprised and at the same time the Kumasi Group (My Group) were also shocked so it was affecting us during the game and I was the assistant captain by then, so when they captain was not there I was supposed to take over,” Anthony Yeboah said on GTV Sports plus.
“So my manager from Germany called Tony Baffoe because I brought Tony Baffour to come and play the National team, I was advising him and in the German League I was on top form and captaining Frankfurt so my manager called Tony Baffoe and told him to tell the Management to give the captain back to Yeboah and Tony Baffoe said No, that was before the game.
“He was not supposed to captain and it was a fact, because Kwesi Appiah was the captain and they took the captain for Abedi so there were a couple of senior players and Tony Baffoe was new in the National team. The top people were there, so I think this situation also cost the team because everybody was shocked and the Coach Otto Pfister told us before the game that he had a letter from Ghana that Tony Baffoe has to be the captain, and I don’t know where the letter was from, I don’t know whether it was true or not.
“Everybody was shocked but I motivated the players and told them it was not a problem and that we should go and play but you can see it affected the team. It was in my mind throughout the game, I was trying to score in that game and I even hit the bar but it didn’t work and at the end of the day we lost that particular game.” He added.
Ghana eventually lost the 1992 Africa Cup of Nations title 11-10 on penalty shootout, with Anthony Baffoe who captained the team on the day missing his kick.
