{"id":246755,"date":"2026-04-08T18:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsworldghana.com\/?p=246755"},"modified":"2026-04-08T18:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:04:20","slug":"take-every-game-as-it-comes-michael-essien-advises-black-stars-ahead-of-2026-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/2026\/04\/08\/take-every-game-as-it-comes-michael-essien-advises-black-stars-ahead-of-2026-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTake every game as it comes\u201d &#8211; Michael Essien advises Black Stars ahead of 2026 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Michael Essien has urged the Ghana national football team to approach the 2026 FIFA World Cup one match at a time as they prepare for a tough group stage challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ghana, who will be making their fifth appearance at the tournament, have been drawn in Group L alongside England national football team, Croatia national football team, and Panama national football team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking to FIFA, the former Chelsea FC midfielder and 2012 UEFA Champions League winner acknowledged the difficulty of the group but stressed the importance of focus and consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s a tough group. But there are always tough games to play, and it\u2019s up to you to win them,\u201d Essien said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey should take every game as it comes and do their best. It\u2019s a tournament \u2014 anything can happen. You just have to make sure you win your games and keep moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ghana will begin their campaign against Panama on June 17 before facing England on June 23 and concluding the group stage against Croatia on June 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Michael Essien has urged the Ghana national football team to approach the 2026 FIFA World Cup one match at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,13,14,177],"class_list":["post-246755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-stories","tag-black-stars","tag-ghana-black-stars","tag-ghana-football","tag-michael-essien"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learn.oshtree.org\/b-class\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}