Coach Milovan Rajevac is central to Ghana's hopes in 2010
Ghana's Black Stars are heading to their second successive World Cup with great confidence.
The belief in the country is that they can at least go one step better than they did on their maiden appearance in Germany 2006.
Talk of Ghana winning the tournament may be far fetched - they do not have the world class strike force needed at this level.
But this is a much improved Black Stars squad and fans are expecting success.
A lot of that belief is derived from the team's run in the qualifiers.
They lost their spark in the final two games of the campaign but before then they had bagged five straight victories home and away without conceding a goal.
How Ghana qualified for the World Cup
At the heart of their fine display was Michael Essien, Ghana's one established world class star.
He bossed the midfield in fine style and capped it with the goal that secured qualification with two rounds of matches remaining.
Ghana's Serbian coach Milovan Rajevac says he is keen to keep the core of the team that reached the second round of the 2006 World Cup.
But he also wants to use promising youngsters like Dominic Adiyiah from the U20 World Cup winning team.
The Serbian has earned his purse in a country where media criticism of coaches is a national pastime.
Rajevac faced a lot of that at the beginning of his term but now Ghana is counting on his astute decision making to see the Black Stars through to another fine World Cup display.
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