After reading Black Stars captain, Asamoah Gyan's comment on Akwasi Appiah as a developed coach, I thought for a while and immediately felt, perhaps, Gyan wanted to say the coach has gained experience in his field but not as developed as he posited.
Experience can be both failure and achievement but development is a positive component of an entity. You can fail, to gain experience but you can't say you have developed when you have failed in a field.
Let me first of all note that I don't hate Akwasi Appiah as I have been a great advocate for local coaches for a long time but I only want to set the records straight. Am saying this because Ghana is the only country where you are seen as an enemy if you put out facts to set records straight or to criticise someone.
I will support any coach who is appointed to handle the Black Stars but not a racist (I'll explain this in my next write up).
In the first place, I think Gyan's description of Akwasi Appiah as a developed coach will be misinterpreted as as campaign message for the gaffer, more especially when the choice of the next Black Stars coach is heightening.
Gyan is not an ordinary Ghanaian but the Black Stars captain and for that matter, what he says about who becomes the next Ghana coach will have a huge telling effect on who is chosen and his relation with the players after assuming office. Gyan could have declined speaking on that.
Now to the main issue. Is Akwasi Appiah really a developed coach? No I don't think so.
Firstly, can we say a coach has developed after failing to win the Sudanese League since joining Al Khartoum? Yes, I will buy the argument that you don't only need to win the league to demonstrate your advancement in development. But for a coach who has coached Ghana at the World Cup, supervising the best game of the 2014 WC - Ghana vs Germany, to move to Sudan and fail to win the league is a draw back, I think.
Akwasi Appiah has failed to travel above the 4th spot on the Sudanese League table since joining Al Khartoum and can't be a developed coach in my opinion.
In 2015, he placed 4th in the Sudanese league and got ejected out in preliminary round of CAF Confederations Cup and placed 5th in the Sudanese League in 2016 as well as failing to qualify for the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup.
Currently he is 7th on the table with Al Khartoum in the league, though we can say the league has just started.
So how can a coach who picked a team place 4th, 5th n 7th in a retrogressive manner be described as a developing coach? He can be gaining experience alright but not to say he is developed.
If losing in the CAF Confederation Cup in 2015 to Power Dynamos of Zimbabwe on a 2-1 aggregate and in 2016 to Sc Villa of Uganda on a 2-0 defeat both home and away will make someone a developed coach, then I think a new dictionary has been written.
In my opinion, Ghana does mot need just any coach but a coach who can qualify the Black Stars to the World Cup, win the African Cup of Nations in 2019, win the CHAN in 2018 and give a passionate facelift to our local league - GHPL, DOL, DTL, Colts etc.
So someone should kindly tell Mr. Asamoah Gyan for me that Coach Akwasi Appiah could have experience but not developed as he wants us to understand.
By: Sheikh Tophic Sienu @desheikh1 on twitter