Black Stars defender Jerome Opoku says Ghana will take lessons from their 1-0 defeat to Colombia as the team shifts focus to the future following their Round of 32 exit at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Jhon Arias’ 14th-minute goal was enough to send Colombia through at Kansas City Stadium, with the Black Stars unable to find an equaliser despite a strong second-half push.
“I think I gave the team what was needed at every moment,” Opoku said after the game.
“They won the game 1-0, so that’s really it. The game plan was to win. There’s not much I can say. Colombia have done that. We didn’t, so congratulations to Colombia.”
Opoku was asked about the backline after Marvin’s injury forced changes.
“Obviously, you need to be ready. Alidu is a great player. Marvin is too. As you said, it was unfortunate, Marvin’s injury. Maybe the flow of the back four. Alidu is a great player and he’s done his best to fill in. We’ve done a good job. They scored on that side, which is unfortunate. We just need to look back at it and see where we can improve.”
The İstanbul Başakşehir centre-back said the squad’s ambition was to go beyond the Round of 32 and show the strength of African football.
“I know tonight didn’t work out real well for us. It’s always great to get out of the group and prove to people that African football is doing well. Obviously, we want to go further”.
”We just don’t want to leave it at Round of 32. We want to progress to Round of 16, quarter finals and keep being competitive. It just didn’t happen for us. All the best to every country. Africa, Asia, Europe. All the best to them.”
Opoku stressed that the team’s mentality was right going into the clash with Colombia.
“We’ve got great talents. We’re doing well. I think we can do better and we always want to do better. We just need to continue looking forward. The past is the past now. We’ll look back at it and see what we can do better. We came into this game the same, with the same hunger.
”The same fight. The coach, we had a good team talk. We had a good build-up. I fought towards the game. Sometimes it happens in football. Sometimes it all doesn’t go your way. The approach to this game I thought was good from the coach and the boys. But as I said, it didn’t go our way today.”
He added: “Like I’ve been saying, this evening after the game, we came into this game very confident, to prove to the Ghanaians and to prove to everybody that we are up for the job. We’ve had a very good series of games before getting here.”
Ghana now turns attention to the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations Qualifiers in September.
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