By Napoleon Ato Kittoe
The silent imperceptible demons in Ghana football are psychological, a self-worth unappreciated by opponents, the dissipation of resources on the fruitless search without the appropriate recompense to past footballers who did a yeoman’s job and are now paupers, and the tormentor-in-chief of our football, which is the permanent weakness opponents exploit.
While the local breeds are going to help substantially, at least offer us a mixed bag of results, a small historical survey conducted revealed that even the locals whose names were heavyweights in their time also incurred setbacks. The difference between then and now is that the past produced good football with nothing to show for the still unredeemed barren four decades in the context of the Black Stars.
For instance, a Black Stars that had Ebo Smith, Nana Eshun, Shamo Quaye, Edward Opeele Aboagye, Thomas Boakye, Kojo Sumaila, Salifu Ansah, etc. on board, were eliminated by the unfancied Gabon in the 1989 Afcon qualifiers for Algeria 1990. Further back, this team on rebuilding course lost to Sierra Leone in Accra in 1986, eventually eliminated on the two-leg aggregate, dubbed the Black Monday.
By 1992, their continued knit together as a team proved that consistency matures the wine. See how the Black Stars reigned supreme in Senegal ’92. So consistency and not the usual hanky-panky assembly of players would put Ghana on track predictably in the medium to long term.
Some coaches hired by Ghana are subtly into conspiracy with others to break the team down, as their allegiances and loyalties are to some other countries. That was why in Ghana/Nigeria 2000, and Ghana 2008, Samuel Osei Kufuor and Michael Essien were left all alone on aggression and in defence, to cave in the Ghana campaign under the wilfully bankrupt tutelage. Soon after Ghana was eliminated, the coach resigned, job executed. Though we played well in another period featuring Ohene Kennedy, Stephen Baidoo, Afo Dodoo, Patrick Allotey, Agyemang Duah, and George Arthur, one could realise Ghana always bubbled to burst midstream.
A case in point was the successful revenge on Ivory Coast in South Africa ’96, only for Ghana to shock everybody with a hopeless 0-3 loss to the hosts and capped the anti-climax with a loss to Zambia in the third-place match.
So even with local players, Ghana was still losing and failed to secure the perception that it was a soccer powerhouse. The psychological part comes into the picture when, on the cusp of World Cup history, to become the first African semi-finalists, they threw that rare chance away. Again, in the 2015 Equatorial Guinea Afcon, Ghana threw the brightest chance of making it fifth, losing grip on a lead in penalties and eventually losing to the Ivory Coast.
They had the psychological toughness lesson in one of the two matches. See how Uruguay chose the option of a red card and conceded a penalty when Suarez parried a goal-bound shot with his hands. It chose one of two devils to subject their destiny to a lottery rather than a straightforward loss in the open play.
Ghana’s recent coaches have also failed to convert any player to other roles, and that shows that they perform like script editors who skim through literature without tweaking. To use the media as the imagery for their work and as an analogy. German coach Burkhard Ziese is a typical reference for the good-case scenario of transforming defender Sam Johnson into an attacking machine.