Ghana and Beitar Jerusalem forward Richmond Boakye Yiadom has urged home-based players to be competitive and fight for positions when they get call-ups to the Black Stars.
In recent times home-based players in the Ghana top-flight league have struggled to break into the starting line up of the Black Stars.
Coach Otto Addo's recent call up to the Black Stars saw just three players invited for the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Madagascar and Central Africa Republic.
Daniel Afriyie Barnie and Augustine Okrah who received the call ups in the intial 33-man squad released were later dropped from the match day squad.
Boakye Yiadom encouraged them not to be intimidated by the foreign-based players and compete for positions when they join the team.
“The local players have great talent. I was also a local player before I moved outside [Europe]. [If you are called up a local player] you have to have a ‘why?’. You need to ask, ‘why am I being called? Why am I part of the team now?’ So if you have a ‘why’ it makes you one of the best, if you don’t, you feel like they called me and I’m lucky. You come back and you are like, they called me to the Black Stars and you are just saying it,” Boakye-Yiadom, who played in the 2021 AFCON in Cameroon told Joy Sports.
“If you have the why and you go there [to the Black Stars camp], you greet the senior players, it’s okay but on the pitch, you make them aware you are not here to make friends, you are not there as a local player but you are here as a Black Stars player. You put the local player behind you because when you wear the jersey you are not a local player. Even though you play in the local league, if you wear the jersey you are a Black Stars player.”
However, the former Juventus forward added that when local players are called into the national team they must go with the mentality of doing better than the foreign-based players.
“If I am a local player and I come to the national team, I am coming to take what you’ve been enjoying in Europe. There has to be a competition. If the competition does not exceed the European player, you have a problem because the European player is coming with something that he is ahead of you in terms of equipment, exercise, sprinting level, and experience level, where the fans are full in the stadium with the confidence level,” he continued.
“When you go there, what do you show the coach that I am a local player but when you give me the opportunity I will swallow three or four players here. There has to be this mentality that why are playing and why are you in the national team. You are there because they picked you to be one of the best. You need to increase the level of your running and everything.
“As a coach, if I see a local player and a foreign-based player, you [as the local player] would need to prove yourself to me you are two times that him for me to put you there [in the team].”