I have been sitting behind my laptop and starring at the keyboard; where do I start, which words do I use? Minutes have almost become an hour and I still haven’t figured how we (Ghana) can dust off the 1-0 loss to Zambia at the semi-final of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and find the lessons in the loss, if any at all. It was not so much that Ghana lost, but the manner in which the loss came.
The Black Stars despite dominating the Chipolopolo of Zambia, could not translate that dominance into victory after missing numerous chances, the most significant being Asamoah Gyan’s 8th minute penalty miss.
Painful! Very painful, but then again, other schools of thought believe it was a loss long coming; Ghana had simply been riding its luck throughout the tournament and unfortunately the luck turned against Ghana on Wednesday night.
It’s a school, I am inclined to lean towards, after a temperate reflection on Ghana’s total output during the entire tourney.
Though Ghana, still has a third place match to play against Mali on Saturday, it is just for academic purposes and the outcome would not alter the ills that befell the Black Stars at AFCON 2012 in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
In a flash however, the lessons have come flooding. So, if you are up to it, let me share with you lessons learnt the bitterest of ways. Maybe, just maybe, it will lighten your heavy hearts. Ready? Here we go:
Never put your faith in one striker
Watching Asamoah Gyan in this tournament has been painful, especially for me. I have been a huge fan of Gyan since his days with Liberty Professionals.
I stood by him when he was severely criticised at AFCON 2008 and even stronger after he missed the last minute penalty at last year’s World Cup quarterfinal match against Uruguay.
Indeed, I can pardon Gyan for not being tip top in this tournament; after all, he hasn’t been fully fit. But today, I am not in a mood to pardon him at all for his missed penalty against Zambia.
It is not the fact that he missed, but rather his lackadaisical approach. But I am tempted to stop right there. Stop? Yes stop, because on second thought, the technical team should take part, if not all the blame.
Good as Gyan maybe, he has allowed complacency to get the better part of him when playing for the Black Stars and that is downright the technical team, headed by Goran ‘Plavi’ Stevanovic’s fault.
When you are an Asamoah Gyan and you look around you and your competition is a certain Prince Tagoe, you can be pardoned if you become complacent.
If you are injured and have not fully recovered, yet your country clearly is unable to find just 1 (ONE) back up or an equally good player to replace you, even without realising, it gets to your head. So, on the day that Gyan is off colour and Plavi wants to take him off, who does he bring?
An ineffective Prince Tagoe, who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Others like Sassuolo’s Richmond Boakye Yiadom or even New Edubiase's Emmanuel Baffour (Leading scorer in local League with 12 goals) should have been there to offer Gyan competition and further options when Gyan’s form dipped.
Coach Plavi failed woefully to scout for competent backups locally and internationally, thus giving the team less attacking options. Well, that is lesson number 1.
Never experiment in the course of a tournament.
They say the mark of a championship winning team is its consistency and the depth of players it possesses. Clearly, coach Plavi failed to deliver on both accounts. For every single match, coach Plavi kept tinkering his selections and it painted a picture of a coach who didn’t know his team or was not confident in his players.
At one time he played Inkoom at left back, who he replaced with Masahudu Alhassan and in the last match, deployed Lee Addy, a conventional centre back, in that position.
He also started John Pantsil at right back and then later replaced him with Inkoom who also played on the right wing.
A position that could have used natural wingers like Albert Adomah and Quincy Owusu Abeyie, who were both dropped, but surely could have done better on the team's crosses which were generally poor. In between all that, he shuffled Kwadwo Asamoah, Sulley Muntari and Jordan Ayew in the attacking positions.
Such inconsistency in the middle of a high profile tournament was highly undesirable and didn’t bode well for team cohesion.
I concede that a coach has every right to tweak his team selections, but really, that should be the exception and not the rule as in the case of the Black Stars.
Plavi had several friendly matches to fine tune the rough edges of the team and didn’t have to wait for the tournament proper to undertake such experimentation.
A team, especially one that was bent on winning the trophy had to be ready to compete from the get go. Sadly, that wasn’t the case with the Black Stars. Well, that is lesson number 2.
Never forget your roots.
Adam Kwarasey, Ghana’s first choice goalie at the tournament would look back on this tournament and would wish he had been ushered in gently as against the silver platter from which he was served.
Kwarasey’s output in the tournament showed that, though he has potential, he is not the established goalie who could sometimes be the critical difference between defeat and victory. His poor decision making, especially in coming off his line, was badly exposed.
On hindsight, Norway based Kwarasey basically inherited the number one position instead of earning it.
He should have earned it in the sense that he should have been alternated with other local goalies in some pretournament matches to inject a form of competitiveness in that department.
But he was given a free pass based on a reason I struggle to fathom. Was it because he is foreign based?
I am attempted to think so because imagine that it was backup goalie Daniel Agyei who had mistimed several crosses in the match versus Mali at the group stage, he would not have returned.
Point I am making is that, the local players are not given enough chances to impress. This Zambian team which the Black Stars lost to, had only 4 players based outside Africa with a greater based in South Africa and Zambia.
Egypt, which won the last three competitions, built the core of their team around locals. Until the notion of European or Western based players being better merely because they play outside Africa is discarded, the team would continue to struggle.
Truth of the matter is that, some of these foreign based players are bench warmers and do not have the requisite match fitness as compared to their local players who play week in, week out.
Plavi cannot convince me that a local player like Emmanuel Baffour would not have been a better alternative to Gyan rather than Prince Tagoe who struggled even with the basics.
In selecting a squad for a tournament, competence, form and ability should override any personal biases against local players. That, should be the final lesson.
As I wind up on my little expose´, I find solace in this quote ‘’the greatest glory in living, lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall’’.
The opportunity for the Black Stars to rise again and make up for the AFCON failure has thankfully been fast forwarded to AFCON 2013 in South Africa.
Yes, there would another tourney next year as the Confederation of African Football moves the AFCON to odd years.
Would the Black Stars rise on that occasion? If they do, then life after Zambia would surely not be as bad as we feel.
Source: 90 minutes Newspapaer