Opeele rubbishes Desailly's quest for Ghana coaching post

Published on: 16 September 2010

Ghana’s highly-respected local coach Isaac ‘Opeele’ Baoteng, has rubbished Marcel Desailly quest to coach the Black Stars, insisting that an Eastern European manager can continue to enhance the strides made by the country under Serbians.

The ex-France captain announced his decision to coach the Black Stars on Wednesday two days after the position became officially vacant following the exit of Serbian Milvoan Rajevac.

The Black Stars have tremendous progress under Serbian coaches with Ratomir Dujkovic sending the country to the World Cup for the first time in 2006 before Rajevac took the side to the quarter final of the global tournament.

Since Rajevac’s exit several European and local coaches have expressed interest in the job with Desailly who previously turned down two approaches also throwing his hat into the ring.

But Opeele, who is known as Ghana's Jose Mourinho, says handing the post to Desailly would be a “disastrous gamble” insisting he has struggled to find a local coach capable of delivering the results.

“The Daily Mail in the UK said Desailly is strongly inexperienced as a coach and they are right. He has not even coached a colts team,” Opeele said.

“There is a great difference between being a great player and a great coach. Recently we saw this at the World Cup with Maradona who did nothing with Argentina.

“The Black Stars is no longer an ordinary team. It is a global brand well enhanced by the performance of Rajevac who took less fancied small boys to the final of the African Cup of Nations final and World Cup quarter final.

“An experiment with Desailly would be a disastrous gamble. I will be happy to see him fully qualified to coach but as it stands now he has not even coached a colts team.

“We stand in danger of destroying what we have built over the few years by giving the team to him now. I think Desailly should start some attachment with some teams in Europe or even under-study a good foreign coach with the Black Stars before he is considered.

“All those young retired players you have seen in Europe coaching national teams have undergone some training and understudied some top coaches but giving this team now to Desailly now is a massive gamble we should avoid.”

The former Asante Kotoko coach says Serbian coaches will continue to aid the rise of the Black Stars because they have the right philosophy needed to blend the experiences of Ghanaian players have had in a third world country and Western Europe.

“The reason why Serbian coaches have been successful is that they come from a similar third world mentality of Ghana players and they also know the Western European style,” the current Okwahu United boss said.

“That is why when people criticized Rajevac’s style of play I hailed him because it delivered the results. The world of football has changed and we must embrace it but not to go back go to ancient times.

“Ghana gained about US$18m for reaching the quarter finals of the World Cup and this money must be reinvested back there so that we can go beyond that and even win the World Cup.

“We need a tactical brain to come and continue to guide the team in the right direction with shrewd tactics.

“We spoke about Ghana blessed with skilled players but what did that bring us until we decided to bring the master tactician Rajevac.

“Let’s go for an Eastern European coach who can continue with the right balance of philosophy to help us. Anything less than this will take us several years back.”

Asked if a local coach like Sellas Tetteh is capable of handling the Black Stars, Opeele said he finds it hard to find the right candidate locally.

“I think Tetteh should stay in Rwanda and continue to prove himself. He was the coach of the Black Stars for a short time and after a desperate result against lowly Lesotho we went for Rajevac.

“Tetteh has a good chance of coming back strongly in future but for now he should continue to build his profile in Rwanda.

“For the rest of the local coaches I will find it difficult to name one student of the game. The only name that comes to mind is David Duncan.

“There are many types of software these days used by the best coaches in the world to analyze matches. The big question is how many local Ghanaian coaches even know how to use the computer let alone monitor our players in Europe?” he asked.

Ghana will play Sudan on 10 October in Accra.

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