Black Stars assistant coach Roger De Sa has described the 2026 FIFA World Cup as a memorable and well-organised tournament, although he admitted that the extensive travel across North America placed significant demands on players.
The South African coach joined Ghana’s technical team ahead of the global showpiece and played a role in the Black Stars’ campaign, which ended at the Round of 32 stage.
Ghana started the tournament on a positive note with a narrow 1-0 victory over Panama before securing a goalless draw against England in their second Group L fixture.
However, a 2-1 defeat to Croatia in their final group match saw the Black Stars finish third in the standings. Despite that setback, Ghana advanced to the knockout stage, where their campaign ended with a 1-0 loss to Colombia.
Reflecting on the tournament in an interview with KickOff, De Sa described the World Cup as a unique experience and praised the organisers for delivering a high-quality competition.
“You know, World Cups are always special, you go to one or two of them, and they always get better. The third one is even better,” he said.
“I thought it was a fantastic tournament, very well organised. Great stadiums, great hotels, everything has been good. Good crowds, the stadiums are full,” he added.
Despite his admiration for the tournament, De Sa identified the long-distance travel between host cities and different time zones as the biggest challenge for participating teams.
“If there was one difficulty, I think it was the travel. The cities were quite distant sometimes, in different time zones. So, that does have an effect on all the teams,” he said.
“The travel is a bit taxing on the players,” he added.
With Ghana’s World Cup campaign now over, the Black Stars will shift their focus to the qualification race for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations.
Ghana have been drawn in Group C alongside Ivory Coast, Somalia and The Gambia, with the qualifying campaign scheduled to begin in September as the Black Stars seek a return to Africa’s biggest football tournament.
