Ghana coach Claude LeRoy slammed the state of the pitch after his side's 2-1 win over Guinea and suggested tournament organisers were to blame.
"The first thing is not the quality of the armchair in the VIP room, but the quality of the pitch," he said of the field at Accra's Ohene Djan stadium.
"In more than 20 years in Africa, it's the worst pitch I've ever seen."
"We have a technical team which likes to play one-touch football and this pitch badly affected our game."
The long grass seemed to impede both sets of players with the ball frequently held up on the turf, making passing difficult and resulting in many collisions.
And Black Star defender John Pantsil was carried off on a stretcher after complaining of dizziness at the end of the match.
Ghana's assistant coach Herve Renard said: "He had a knock to his jaw after a rough challenge during the first half."
Team-mate Laryea Kingston added: "John felt weird at half-time, he could not remember anything from the first 45 minutes.
"Now he's fine, he's just been sent to the hospital for a couple of checks."
LeRoy blamed his team's poor finishing after the hosts left it late in the Group A tie, with Sulley Muntari scoring a spectacular winner in the final minutes.
"We created so many opportunities to score, scoring seems to be very complicated for us," he said.
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"But it was a very good performance by the Black Stars.
"We were also unlucky in the first half when we hit the post three times. We know that the future will be very difficult because all the teams in this competition are very good teams."
LeRoy's opposite number and fellow Frenchman Robert Nouzerat slammed his team's performance.
"This is the worst match Guinea have played under me," he said.
"My regret is that we didn't play the way we should have.
"The next game will be decisive for us. The consequence of losing the first game is that if we lose the second, we're out."
Both sides' next matches are on Thursday, with Guinea facing Morocco while Ghana take on Namibia.
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