Ghana Black Stars - The Morning After Pill

Following the cowardly capitulation of the national football team to the African football powerhouse Mozambique, a collapse totally expected if coming events cast their shadows, but still painful nonetheless and a reversion back to a regressive mean, I have some thoughts.

The treachery of the Black Stars has reached peak Ebola levels. Now instead of supporting the Black Stars being the patriotic thing to do, it has morphed into something like the much-maligned national service, something you do because you have to do it. Every competitive Black Stars match is transforming into a surefire recipe for a coronary, a heart attack. I could dissect this eight ways to Sunday, but none will get us into the round of 16: the needless concession of that now-fatal stab wound of a second goal against Cape Verde, both goals against Egypt, that criminally asinine goalkeeper Ofori touch to concede a totally unwarranted corner kick in the dying embers of the Mozambique game. Now, after inflicting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on already long-suffering Ghanaians, the purge of the Black Stars must be brutal, almost Stalinist in nature. The coach should be the first to fall on his sword. We can't keep doing this. And that begs the question, what are we actually doing? What are we about? What is our mission statement, our statement of claims? ?The players swear every match to uphold and defend the good name of Ghana so help them God, but they don't mean any of that. They tug at our heartstrings, toy with what little emotion we can muster in the waning days of the Akufo-Addo presidency. The writing was on the wall before the tournament begun, and most people knew we weren't going to be much of a factor at this tournament, scoring only one goal in our last 5 matches pre-AFCON. But after the amateurish defensive slip-ups and costly errors, we must define where we want to be. It is so abject. It seems we also have an island problem. We've reached a nadir when we lose 2 straight competitive matches to the invincible Comoros, struggle mightily to even get a goal past giants Madagascar in a world cup qualifier and at home no less, and needlessly, haplessly concede a late goal against the indomitable Cape Verde. As I wrote on a group WhatsApp platform, other island nations like Montserrat, Reunion and even micro Pitcairn Island could clout-chase by cobbling together ragtag bands of plumbers, carpenters and masons, arrange matches with us and actually beat us. Whatever that may be, we should under no circumstances, go against the fabulous, supremely talented Equatorial Guinea, who turned on the jet-propellers against another woefully fallen star, the Elephants of d'Ivoire. The systematic and methodical dissembling they laid waste to the host nation was delightful to watch. This tournament has been something of a 'becoming', as the author Dean Koontz is wont to say, of some new rising powers in the African game. Irrespective of how far Cape Verde or Equatorial Guinea go the rest of the tournament, my respect and regard for them and their swashbuckling brand of highly effective and entertaining football has reached new levels. Sadly, we can only watch from the sidelines while the festival goes. The silver lining, as I keep asserting, is that this is the wake up call we need to get in shape for the remaining world cup qualifiers. We knew we had problems, but now it's been officially confirmed. The ostrich behaviour will no longer be condoned. Accountability must be the keyword going forward. Key performance indices (KPIs) have to be rigged up for every and anyone involved in the national setup; from the association chief all the way down to the water carrier. Heads should, and must roll. I do not know who the GFA chairman is, but foisting the managerial role on Chris Hughton, who never asked for this, should be a fireable offence. We lacked vision, lacked cohesion, and lacked a natural goalscorer in the 18. I do not claim to have the answers, but perhaps, the association should cast a wider net, as Cape Verde and others are doing, to find solutions to these long existing problems. We must look for natural born killers in front of goal, Seyhou Guirassy type players with higher conversion rates, players who do not need 10 opportunities to tap in a single goal. Sure, other pedigreed nations have also struggled; Nigeria, Tunisia, South Africa, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, etc. but Ghana keeps setting unnecessary records, the first true power to be sent home. Per my mathematics, there are still pathways where we qualify, even on 2 points, but these are such long shots (Cameroon must draw with the Gambia, Morocco has to beat Zambia, and DR Congo beats or draws with Tanzania), and even in the miraculous case all three conditions occur, that will only be cold comfort to a nation miserably acclimated to the forbearance of low expectations.

For pomp and pageantry, the AFCON never disappoints. Even though the Black Stars pulled a new one from their seemingly bottomless bag of delightfully unfunny tricks, we were sufficiently warned before the tournament. As the poet Maya Angelou once wrote, if someone shows you who they are, believe them!