For 33 years the senior national soccer team, the Black Stars, have had their focus on improving on their 1982 record of a fourth African Cup title without a success. All methods have been tried, various local and expatriate coaches have been employed to apply their experience and tactics but to no avail. This is amazing!
Renowned local coaches such as C.K.Gyamfi, Osam Duodu, Ben Kuofie, Janis Attuquayefio, Sam Ardey, Emmanuel Kwasi Afranie, Sellas Tetteh, Kwasi Appiah and others have risen up to the challenge with a lot of promise, but; they have found no answer to the riddle to the surprise of the sporting world.
Besides them, notable expatriate coaches like Ali Kanyas, Otto Pfister, Burkhard Ziesse, Rauf Zumdic, Milan Zivadinovic, Mariano Barreto, Rotamil Djinovic, Claude Le Roy, Milan Rajevac, Goran Stephanovic and Avram Grant, have had their best trial moments but no answers have been found, with the citizens still having their fingers crossed.
All sorts of promises and assurances have been placed at the feet of the Stars, yet, what is missing is the final delivery. Even when we hosted the event together with Nigeria in the year 2000, and later in 2008 when we had the singular privilege to host it, with our best of material, the highest we could go was the winning of the bronze medals.
However, in 2010 in Angola and 2015 in Equatorial Guinea, the Black Stars managed to reach the grand finale and fell to Egypt and rampaging Cote d’ Ivoire respectively and we seemed to be content with the loss to the better sides, eventhough the deciders were through the lottery of penalties.
All sorts of arguments and suggestions have been advanced by the critics and sages over the solution to the problem, and despite all the prayers, the Black Stars over the years have been motivated with various mouth-watering projections, with the last one be 23 four-wheeled Cherokee vehicles, while some companies like GLICO fulfiled their promises with fat cheques.
Of course, this country can boast of some wonderful players with world-class ability who might just need a little more shake up after a kick-off at tournaments.
In the past, some people described the Black Stars as slow starters; one typical example being the recent Equatorial Guinea tournament during which Senegal's Teranga Lions displayed their prowess and preparedness for the task ahead a with fantastic 2 - 1 victory over the Stars.
People have advanced all sorts of reasons for the poor show of the Stars at such tournaments after all the assurances but a different story to tell at the tail end of the show. Did I hear that the problem is the way the players are scattered all over Europe and Africa and the short period of their preparation towards their assignments?
Over the years, it has been the practice to keep to the calling of local players to such national assignments, and of course, up to 1982 when the Stars won their fourth African championship, the team was predominantly local material at a time professionalism was not in vogue, like it is now.
If selection is done on time it gives them ample time to work together and advance their formations, including touring various highly advanced soccer countries to polish their abilities before tournaments.
In fact, some of the old coaches had cause to complain about poor preparation and the inadequate time for their trials. Our latest Israeli coach might have noticed something peculiar about the Stars and finds it important to gather them and get enough time to try them at various times at their own convenience, and that is gratifying in all respects.
His recent plans of assembling his men for the friendlies with Senegal and Mali was of special significance, since that will help him to groom them together and even help him to do all the needed reshuffles before major assignments.
The soccer tactician, even though he lost his first major assignment to Senegal in Equatorial Guinea, had the belief that his team would make amends and bounce back to make the needed corrections in France, but still lost narrowly.
As for Senegal, their last victory in the opening match of the last tournament might have given Avram Grant some nightmares, and he decided to wipe off those tears with that friendly.
But the Stars’ defence gave the Senegalese the edge and made light work of the Stars backline with substitute Moussah Konate scoring two goals in 11 minutes to prove that their last victory was no hoax.
Before the last tournament, Avram Grant was given the mandate to go and do his best, and he managed to reach for the silver medal. And this time round, he has to do all he can to improve on what he did to make sure the 33-year drought comes to an end. And the earlier he keeps his focus, the better.
