Lessons from TP Mazembe’s success story
May the Almighty God have mercy on us we visionless people who in our backsliding, take solace in other people's glory and pride. I look back with nostalgia the days when we spent our energy, wisdom and hard-earned money to secure independence for a people who were struggling under the enslavement of their Belgian colonial masters and were crying for a saviour from above. You can't believe it, today the same people have had the effrontery to buy our talents and have used them to win the CAF champions league, while we languish far behind without the same ability to buy great footballers for the same football competition.
Advertisement
To a lot of us who watched the CAF champions league grand finale, the greatest pleasure we enjoyed on the day was the fact that four of our compatriots featured in the T.P Mazembe outfit that won the 2015 African clubs champions cup against USM Algers of Algeria, the club which has been harassing our clubs of late.
I must say we were all extremely elated as players such as Richard Kisi Boateng, Yaw Frimpong, Daniel Nii Adjei and Solomon Asante showed their capabilities on the day, resulting with the display of medals decoration.
The home team from Lumumbashi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, had an earlier advantage of a 2 - 1 win, courtesy the first leg played in Algeria, and coach Patrice Carteron knew that with the Algerians, they needed not be complacent.
All these characteristics were on display, and indeed the coach needed the resilience of a team such as TP Mazembe to manage a breakthrough in the dying embers of the game. Yes, the glory belonged to DR Congo, and I could see in the smiles of Congolese, and especially the CAF President, Issah Hayatou, who was present instead of being in Chile where the FIFA Under-17 finals were being played, the rate of satisfaction.
Right there, the Ghana flag was on display with the boys from Ghana telling the world that they took part in the success story of TP Mazembe.
Who in this country would not have been happy to see a club such as Kumasi Asante Kotoko, Accra Hearts of Oak, Ashgold, Liberty Professionals or Hasaacas lifting the CAF champions league cup which has eluded us for almost 15 years.
With such crop of players in their mist, it is no wonder that at the 2011 World Club Championship, the Congolese champions were able to reach the grand finale, and set a fresh history on our continent. Infact there are a lot to consider when we come to discuss the retrogression of our game in recent times, and the obvious problem is the rate of exodus from our shores.
A case in point is our beloved Kennedy Ashia of Liberty Professionals who has swerved offers from Hearts, Kotoko and Ashgold to join Al Hilal in Sudan. Already, some of his compatriots such as Augustrine Okrah, Ghandi Kassim, Francis Cofie and Yakubu Razak, who could enrich our game down here or there. Surely, we live in a country where the best of talents who can reach the highest echelons of the game are being produced, but for economic and social imbalances find, it convenient to join the migration.
We have been fighting against this trend right from the 70’s when players such as Wilberforce Mfum, Agyeman Gyau, Abdul Razak, Frank Odoi and others made their way outside to enrich other leagues in Europe and America. Today, things have moved from bad to worse, and the ripples are showing everywhere. If anyone cared to take note of the number of spectators who went to watch the Black Princesses and their Ethiopian counterparts in their World Cup qualifier in Kumasi last Sunday, the obvious conclusion is that there must be a lot to do to remedy the situation as we see it now.
The Congolese are showing us the light from the darkness,and we must know that after years of backsliding under the name Zaire, they had to go back to be born again under a substantive natural home of River Congo. This was what nature demanded, and they did not feel ashamed to do it! When shall we as a people also see the light? We live to see!
