Black Stars coach Otto Addo has explained why he took off Ghana's first goal scorer Andre Ayew moments after he equalized for Ghana in their 3-2 defeat to Portugal.

Andre Ayew and Kudus Mohammed who combined for Ghana's equalizer were taken off in the 77th minute and Ghana immediately conceded two goals in the 78th and 80th minute as substitute Jordan Ayew gave the ball away twice for the two Portugal goals.

Speaking after the match, the Ghana coach revealed it was a tactical decision as Ayew had a yellow card and feared he could not be effective with his card.

"It was a tactical change; he had a yellow card and I had fears that he cant go in for tackles the way I wanted. So, I took him off to bring a fresh player.

I don’t think it had a big impact because at that moment it was actually 1-1. The game was hectic, we made some few mistakes which resulted in the second and third goal.

We failed to close the lines, opened the lines for them to pass the balls, they used it.

We were a little bit unlucky, like I said with a little bit of luck we could have reached one point.

The referee too was not on our side. In my view our yellow cards were deserved but for me holding jerseys, stopping counter attacks were also a yellow card but I don’t know what was wrong. But clearly you could see that the referee was not in our favour."

The Black Stars improved in the second half as Mohammed Kudus’ shot went wide of the post after a decent build up from midfield.

Ghana captain Andre Ayew equalised from close range as he tapped in a cross from Baba Abdul Rahman after the Portugal defence failed to deal with it.

Few minutes later, Portugal responded with two goals in two minutes to close the contest as Joao Felix converted a delightfully clipped finish and substitute Rafael Leao coolly stroking in just seconds after coming on.

With the heading to an end, Osman Bukhari headed in a late consolation for the lack Stars and there could have been real drama in the ninth minute of stoppage time as Inaki Williams intercepted a ball from Diogo Costa but the Athletic Bilbao forward slipped at the crucial moment and a feeble shot was cleared off the line.