KB Asante: Voice From Afar column
A generation on trial in Ghana
What is wrong with Ghana today is that we refuse to confront the challenges of the times with confidence and the resolve to modify or change our ways to seize problems as opportunities to create a prosperous nation.
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We blame events. We find fault with our institutions, but the fault is with us. We are good but we are reluctant to apply the necessary self-discipline and commitment to realise our true potential.
The recent world football matches in Brazil illustrate our potential and failures, especially lapses in discipline and concentration. The talk is, however, all about the failure of the Black Stars and the football and sports establishments. And even in these areas, we do not clearly identify the wrongdoers so that they may be sanctioned appropriately and future progress assured.
I know very little about football apart from coaching my house team at Achimota and playing for University College, Durham. I stopped playing football for the college and turned to hockey because of the hullabaloo made about my scoring a goal without boots!
Actually, I had ‘canvas’ shoes on. We played football barefooted in my time. I, therefore, find many of our moans strange and unrealistic. It is now felt that we should conform immediately to the practices of western countries.
We believe it is necessary for our girls to use imported ‘sanitary towels’ and that should take precedence over the provision of textbooks. We are ashamed of the red strip (christened ‘shame cloth’ by a famous judge) which girls and women wore not long ago as ‘underwear’. Progress certainly does not mean copying practices in the so-called developed world.
To be somewhat frivolous, I knew of men who were turned on by beads and the red cloth! We do not determine our priorities. To many, progress is copying what is done in the ‘developed’ world.
Having strayed into other fields and disposed of my little knowledge of football and ignorance about the present football business, let me now claim that the Black Stars did well in Brazil.
The team was the only one which was not beaten by Germany. The Ghana team drew with Germany, the world champions!
What should concern us even more than airlifting US$3 million to Brazil is the inability of the Black Stars to maintain focus and discipline from the very start to end of a match. They would have gone far to the knock-out stage to lift the confidence and pride of Africa.
To relax in the first two minutes and allow the Americans to score was bad concentration. The Stars played very well after that and had better possession.
Their efforts paid when they equalised. Again, lack of concentration, when the match was not over, allowed the Americans to score again near the end of the encounter. Similarly, with Germany, the Black Stars played very well.
They led at the dying minutes of the match. Again, lack of concentration when the match was not over denied them victory. The Stars lost to Portugal because of lack of commitment and preoccupation with self.
Football requires team play. We give too much applause to strikers. Yes, they score the goals. But if the defence is lousy, as was with the Brazilians in their match with Germany, strikers would not win the game.
It was bad defence that allowed the Germans to score as many as seven goals against the Brazilians. And so let us focus on the ‘realities’. Let us recognise the good qualities in our team and help correct their failures. Our footballers are not bad. They can do it as Ghanaians can if they sit up.
The Black Stars were on trial, like the nation. But the nation should not fail. We should recover our past resilience, discipline and work ethic. That is the way out of the present economic crisis which we can certainly overcome with good policies and strategies and hard work.