By Yaw Ampofo-Ankrah in Khartoum
If you come to Sudan with an attitude of knowing it all, you may leave having learnt nothing at all. But there is a lot to learn from this country that celebrated its independence from British colonial rule on January 1, 1956.
Once again, the harsh lesson that talent alone is never enough has hit home hard so instead of blaming and complaining we should be thankful for this painful but inevitable lesson from Sudan 2011. You do not need an expert to tell you that lack of good preparation will never put a team in a position to excel and with that comes a lack of confidence, followed by lack of focus and then all you can do is to pray for miracles, unrealistic doses of luck and the mathematics of relying on other results to save the day.
So, after the much debated and criticized performance of the Black Stars at CHAN 2011, it was not surprising that a strangely subdued atmosphere hung thick in the in the air like China fog as the players and officials sat or strolled through the lobby of Hotel Kabri. They were waiting for the signal to leave Khartoum at midnight for the fifteen minutes drive to the airport thence to Nairobi and finally home to Accra.
I am not sure what sort of reception they will receive but as I spoke with coach Herbert Addo for close to an hour, not once did he run away from blame and shouldering responsibility for the team’s concert in Sudan. Our chat was off-camera and but I could sense he is dreading returning to Ghana empty handed, his cv weakened, the team badly deflated and his pride seriously bruised.
Not since Egypt 2006 when the Ratomir Dujkovic led Black Stars were tossed out of that tournament have I heard so many apologies and seen so many awkward glances from players and officials preparing to go home and not to a funeral.
The players were embarrassingly apologetic and ashamed of soiling the Ghana flag at a major soccer competition. But why blame the coach alone? His squad may have been debatable and his selections questionable but has anybody bothered to ask WHY the players appeared to be more committed to their clubs than to the CHAN cause in Sudan?
Is Ghana football as simple as the GFA signing multi-million dollar sponsorship deals or the MEDIA making so much razzmatazz when things go wrong? What about successive GOVERNMENTS that always send officials to meet victorious teams at the Airport to swim in the sea of mass euphoria? Without the players to win, what would we celebrate?
If we could buy trophies and win tournaments, how much would it cost? Why is it that nobody wants to tackle the root causes of falling domestic league standards and ask how we can arrest the condition season after season? Is it true that footballers are crying for a better share of the spoils, better contracts and better pay?
Has the recent relative successes of the Black Stars clouded our sense of judgement at the detriment of the local league? Would we prefer to go and watch cats and dogs chasing footballs around our pitches?
The truth is that the ’’local Black Stars’’ have not really been fully accepted by Ghanaians yet. It may take take time and judging from this latest outing, a long time.
From potential programme sponsors back home who first wanted to ‘‘wait and see‘‘before signing sponsorship cheques to the lukewarm media coverage that hardly promoted the competition let alone the national team’s campaign.
Not even supporters groups can be left out as they were not so enthused about the team’s chances so decided to stay back and see if the boys would not fail as widely feared.
Could it be that the unloved child decided to rebel and pay back the lack of affection? If that was the case, why should Ghanaians start throwing tantrums and crying foul? Are we not being hypocritical or does Ghana have a divine right to win every international match with average players and some may harshly conclude an average coach?
Should the GFA not also be held accountable? What are we doing about the continued mass exodus of Ghanaian players seeking better fortunes outside because of the peanuts they receive at the end of every month called wages? They will surely continue to leave.
The fact is, remnants of the team that initially qualified for the CHAN competition made up just 30% of the final squad named by coach Herbert Addo. So blame the coach by all means because that is what happens the world over when a team crashes out of a major tournament. The coach messed up full stop so problem solved?
Thankfully before leaving Khartoum, nobody tried to escape blame when I asked ’’what really went wrong?’’ From out of favour forward Bernard Dong Bortey to goalkeeper Sammy Adjei, the tone was a familiar chorus of ’’if only’’ and ’’maybe’’ and the lame excuse of the terrible pitch factor. I did not waste my energy to explain to them that the teams that beat Ghana ALSO played on the same terrible pitch.
I am no expert so i will not pretend to have all the answers. But i can paint a picture of what may have gone wrong from my interactions with the key actors within the Stars set up here and indeed the external factors that simply meant that the mission to Sudan was doomed to failure from the start right across our venues in the local league.
I am not in total agreement with the respected but flawed argument based on what we all know about Ghana football today; namely, the poor quality of the Premier League.
With the exception of South Africa, can we honestly say that Zimbabwe and Niger have better leagues than Ghana? Do these countries produce better players than Ghana?
The championship of African Nations is set aside for home based players selected from various domestic leagues.
Its key aim is to unearth talent and possibly to identify the strongest league on the continent. That Tunisia and DR Congo have progressed should not really be news but Ghana falling by the way side in the manner that was exhibited is cause for alarm.
The North African and South African leagues are progressing steadily and the drop-out ratio of players going abroad is significantly lower than that of Ghana. There is no magic wand or mystery to Ghana’s pathetic showing here in Sudan. Certainly there is no need to write a novel on the way forward. It is quite simple. The local league very is sick and could yet go into intensive care.
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