They say revenge is a dish best served cold and over the last international window, Kwesi Appiah has served it in big chunks.
Appiah, the former Ghana captain and coach, returned to face the Black Stars, a team that made him both as a player and coach and inflicted the most damaging set of results in the last 20 years. And he managed to do that wearing a smile, saying very little and letting his most potent weapon; football, do the talking.
This was Sudan, dominating the Black Stars in Libya. They had more energy, they passed better, and they were more direct. Ghana coach Otto claimed after the first match that “Sudan were lucky, they won’t be lucky next time we meet them.” It turned out to be an empty boast because in the end, Ghana was lucky not to lose by a bigger margin with just one shot on target.
The 2 nil win was fully deserved for Kwesi Appiah’s team and when one contributor to a 3Sports Space from Sudan said “we are grateful to Ghana for giving us Appiah”, he was speaking the mind of many Sudanese.
The thoughts and minds of Ghanaians have been pretty easy to read everywhere; X, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, in our WhatsApp chats, on radio on TV. The anger and frustration is palpable, and it is easy to see why.
Black Stars painfully ordinary
The Black Stars are in grave danger of becoming painfully ordinary, of slipping into absolute nobodies in African football, and that has major repercussions.
This year, the team has won twice, both under Otto Addo. They were important wins, including one over the highly fancied Mali because they have set Ghana up well in the 2026 world cup qualifying. Those are the best things to happen to the team this year.
Everything else has been painfully bad. “This year we have won only two matches. And you think last week because we created chances, we would win at all cost. The team is not that good. The team is not,” Emmanuel Agyemang Badu who played in the 2015 final of the Africa Cup of Nations for Ghana slammed.
Badu’s views were a dominant theme, and it is hard to disagree. In two games against Sudan, Ghana seemed to lack soul. The players seemed to be just there for being there sake. It was painful to watch, especially the defining loss in Libya.
This is the players we have, they are doing very well in their clubs but when they come to Ghana, nothing works and even ball control becomes a problem. Look at the first goal. Two defenders and you allow the attacker to go through. You don’t know whether the defender wants to clear the ball, what else. The first rule is to clear the ball.
While Ghana created a lot of chances in the first game and over the two games, the finishing was shocking for a team can call up players scoring goals and thrilling crowds in the top leagues of Spain and England. “In two matches, we got over 30 set pieces and couldn’t convert one. Open play, you can’t, individual brilliance is not working, set pieces too is not working. Where are you heading to? The team is doomed.”
Doomed may be a strong word, but we are standing on the edge. The FIFA rankings has tanked badly and into the 70s and will fall further. There is so much gloom which is beginning to reflect in the debate.
Legitimate questions about Kurt-led GFA
Questions have rightfully been asked about the Kurt Okraku led Ghana Football Association and their decision-making. In June, there was no basis to question Otto Addo’s appointment. On the evidence of recent games, there are legitimate questions about whether it was the best thing to do. Two wins out of eight matches and three defeats in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers simply amplifies the doubts. And the fact that Otto Addo is not working is entirely on Kurt Okraku who has been his biggest single backer.
There is a bigger problem for Kurt, though.
Having taken the players to the cleaners and made a big, public show of it, there are legitimate concerns if he has irreparably damaged the relationship with the players. In that famous or infamous video, depending on where you stand, he spoke some powerful truths to players who have become too comfortable and not driven enough. They were truths that, without the slightest shade of doubt, the players needed to hear. There is however a strong argument to be made that the timing was not great and that public shaming will be ultimately counterproductive. And it has proven to be. Given that his role is an elected position, what are the options? Not much for the period of his stay than to demand better management of not just the Black Stars but Ghana football.
@3sportsgh Black Stars issues reflective of a general trend of poor decisions across different spectrums of Ghama football – Michael Oti Adjei and Sitso #3SportsGH #Blackstars ♬ original sound – 3SPORTSGH
Under the leadership of Kurt Okraku, the Black Stars have hired five managers. When Kwesi Appiah was deemed not up to scratch, he handed the team to C.K Akonnor. Turned out it was a bad call, but the decision to revert to the Milovan Rajevac proved even more catastrophic. There was a lot of nostalgia for the Serbia including from myself, but he came back a compromised man with nothing like the hunger he arrived here with the last time. The sport had left him behind and we paid for it. So we went for Otto a first time when two draws against Nigeria earned world cup qualification and bought him more credit in the GFA bank so when Chris Hughton badly let all of us down, we went back to him. Hughton was the only appointment that was not championed by the GFA president and it is telling that he was the one coach who was only bastardised by those close to the main authority at the GFA. The one constant in all of this? The GFA, Kurt Okraku. By simple deduction, if your calls are not working, if one appointment after the other leaves you worse off, then there are questions to be asked. This is not, to use a tired phrase, rocket science.
While initiatives such as the Catch Them Young Referees policy, emphasis on women’s football and others have been brilliant, Ghana football is bleeding badly. The poor form, decadence is reflected too much in all levels of the sport for the poor form of the Black Stars to be isolated cases. “We don’t need to massage anything any more. We need to be humble. Nothing is working. From local league, to U17 to U20, local black stars to women’s football, nothing is happening,” Agyemang Badu slammed.
Otto Addo’s culpability
The fact that there are systemic problems is not a pass for Otto Addo though. In fact, when he was returning, one of the most compelling arguments the GFA made for the appointment was this claim that he knows the system, knows the team and therefore knows what it requires. Six months in, the results are exposing the bad fundamentals. It is Otto’s job to provide short term fixes while we think of the long term solutions.
And the short term fixes are possible with the Black Stars. There is this notion that somehow “this is our level”, that we are not as good as we used to be. The latter is obvious, the former absolute hogwash.
A national team with a roll call of players we have, many active, dominant figures at club level should not be this bad. They play, they score, they assist, and they are regulars in good leagues. Lawrence Ati Zigi for all the immense doubts is a regular at a good Swiss club. Alidu Seidu gets good reviews at Stade Rennes in the French top flight but look at the basic defending errors he made. Djiku is no slouch at Fernabahce and Salisu Mohammed has started the season in brilliant fashion with AS Monaco, including a superb outing against the mighty Barcelona. In attack, players like Mohammed Kudus, Inaki Williams and Antoinne Semenyo will get into many national teams, while players like Ernest Nuamah are immense on their own.
So we need to be sparred this unscientific sermon that this is our level, that there is no talent, that we are where we deserve to be. It is not. Now Otto Addo must bring them alive through his decision-making, through the clarity and thoroughness of his processes, through a good understanding of the many factors that helps a national team gel.
Rebuilding more than doable
View this post on Instagram
In all the wave of noise that has come up after the Sudan defeat, perhaps the most poignant has come from Emmanuel Agyeman Badu. He himself a beneficiary of a previous system where players progressed from youth teams through to the senior teams and were stewed in not just the playing culture, thinks too many Black Stars players have become isolated from the cultural and sociological realities of who they represent.
“We have too many players who don’t understand the culture, the socialization and the complexities and difficulties of playing for us unlike previously. That needs to change”, he says.
So this is far from a criticism of the players. Algeria, Morocco and Nigeria have proven that you can be reasonably successful with second generation nationals whose connection to the country is mostly through a parent or grand parent and who understand London and Paris or Amsterdam than they consider Rabat, Lago, Algiers home. But it just does’t happen and seeing that this is an inevitable direction of world football, ours need to improve.
Our problems are immense but we fixed it when we went through 1984 until 1992 without qualifying for the Nations Cup, we managed to find a solution after the largely forgettable tournaments of the 90s up to mid 2000s where were missed one tournament, were poor in another in 94 and shocking in Abedi Pele’s last in 1998 with a group stage exit. We built a team after the 2006 world that the stood the test of time. We have done it before, we can do it again but only if as always the priority is Ghana first at every level of our football.
At the moment the evidence points to too many interest competing with the interest of the country.
