Former Black Stars Captain Stephen Appiah has expressed his disappointment over Africa's failure to make an impact at the ongoing World Cup in Russia. 

All of Africa's contenders were eliminated at the group stages of the competition for the first time since 1982.

Appiah insist it’s the time for the continent to improve technically following the underwhelming performance of the teams in Russia. 

“I think African countries must lift up their game at the World Cup. Is not good if all our participants are eliminated at the group stage, not encouraging at all,” Appiah told the Media doing the Ghana Football Awards.

“We lack in some technical aspect, Nigeria were six minutes away from making it to the next stage but they could not delay time and stood there for Argentina to score. Belgium resorted to technical time delay against Brazil in the final six minutes when the heat was on them. They always located Hazard who stood on the ball and drew fouls just to kill time, is about time we learn some of this things,” he added.

Stephen Appiah led Ghana to it's first ever World Cup in 2006 and was part of the team that were a kick away to reaching the semifinals in South Africa 2010.

By Daraja Mutari