Appiah lauds Satellites
Black Stars' head coach Kwasi Appiah, currently in Turkey on a monitoring mission, is delighted at the progress of the Black Satellites and has confidently predicted the team could go all the way to the final of the FIFA Under-20 Championship, despite their jerky start when the competition kicked off in Istanbul.
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After dumping the pre-tournament favourites, Portugal, from the tournament, the Satellites now have to clear Chile — who eliminated Croatia last Wednesday — in a quarter-final showdown on Sunday in Istanbul.
He disclosed that after four matches so far some of the Ghanaian players had already sold their potential and capability to compete at the big stage.
Appiah, who has successfully led the Black Stars through two crucial World Cup qualifiers against The Sudan and Lesotho last month, was confident that some of the Satellites players would make it to his team.
Already, striker Richmond Boakye-Yiadom and Baba Abdul Rahman, who are key actors in the Satellites World Cup campaign in Turkey, joined the team after participating in the two 2014 World Cup qualifiers. Appiah said some few others could be relevant to the current and the future Black Stars, even though he failed to disclosed their names.
According to the coach, he was still compiling a list for consideration and would make his final decision after the World Youth Championship.
The Black Stars coach said the Satellites had shown promise in their last three matches such that he could now confidently predict that the team was on the threshold of another landmark achievement.
He told the Graphic Sports: “considering the performance of the team in the last three games against Spain, USA and last Wednesday’s 3-2 win over Portugal, there was every justification to conclude that the Ghanaians have found their magic.”
Interestingly, former Black Stars head coach, Milovan Rajevac, was similarly a familiar guest at the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Egypt where Ghana emerged as the first African side to win the competition.
The Serbian, on a similar talent and monitoring mission at Egypt 2009, finally co-opted into his team young players such as Andre Dede Ayew, Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu, Jonathan Mensah, Samuel Inkoom, goalkeeper Daniel Agyei and Dominic Adiyiah, who won the Golden Shoe and Golden Ball at the tournament.
The Satellites's gutsy performance against Portugal last Wednesday must have shattered the coaching ambitions of Edgar Borges as he dramatically walked away from the media after the encounter.
A disappointed Borges, who had boasted about his trenchant front-line in a pre-match hype, refused to avail himself of the usual post-match press conference and rather chose to align with his local media. After his Ghanaian counterpart, Sellas Tetteh, had paid glowing tribute to the vintage display by his players, Borges surprisingly failed to turn up for the mandatory post-match briefing.
Later, a visibly disappointed Borges admitted to the Graphic Sports at the team's Hilton Kayseri hotel, that he was deeply troubled by the defeat because he thought his players would have risen to the occasion despite the huge respect he had for the Ghanaian team.
“I respect the Ghanaian team, they have always been brilliant in this tournament. But I think my boys did enough to win this match. That is how football behaves... sometimes very cruel. But I wish the Ghana team well,” he said.
Indeed, the Portugal coach must have summed up the deeper frustration in their camp after last Wednesday's game, having assembled one of the best array of both technical men and talented players, perhaps the best any team has ever put together in the tournament in recent times.
Over 14 technical brains, led by their coaching legend, Humberto Coelho, and former international, Pauleta, who was in charge of youth and talent development, were in Turkey for the tournament.
By Andy Quao