Not particularly vintage, Stars!

THE national football team, the Black Stars, last Saturday beat Mali two-nil to virtually ease to the quarter final stage of the on-going African Cup of Nations (AFCON) co-hosted by Gabon-Equatorial Guinea. As per the tournament regulations, Guinea would have to beat Ghana 3-0, while Mali beat Botswana by the same margin tomorrow evening to deny the Stars qualification to the next stage of the competition.

WITH the steady progress of the Black Stars in the competition, it does seem to us that Ghana’s quest to end a 30-year-old drought in the continental football fiesta is well on course. The last time Ghana won the African Cup of Nations was in Libya 1982, when Emmanuel Quarshie led Stars to win Ghana’s 4th AFCON Cup.

SINCE then, the closest the Stars have come within the 30 year lull has been 1992 and 2010 when Ghana lost the finals to La Cote D’ Ivoire and Egypt respectively. After the team’s vintage performance at the last World Cup, where Ghana was the only African country to get to the quarter-finals, the pundits are not far from right in tipping Ghana as one of the teams to lift this year’s trophy.

AFTER two wins from all matches played, the Ghanaian dream seem to be on course; yet we believe it has not been all that vintage performance from the Stars, in the two matches played so far. And it took two individual brilliance from Asamoah Gyan and Dede Ayew to settle Ghana’s crunch second group stage match against West African neighbours, Mali, which fielded a fearsome side that featured the celebrated Seidu Keita of Barcelona, Cheick Tidiane Diabate and Modibo Maiga who plies his trade in French league 1.

WITH the pedigree as perhaps the team with the best character in tournaments, most Ghanaians are not particularly shocked about the progress so far made by the team in this year’s AFCON. The paper believes Ghana’s sloppy performance in the opening Group D match against debutant, Botswana, was largely due to the lack of training matches in the build-up to the tournament.

THE fact that the coach experimented with some of the players in makeshift positions, clearly showed how the technical team of the Stars was not sure about the first 11 players to start the tournament. Clearly it showed how the lack of enough practice matches affected particularly the team’s opening matches in our two opening matches played so far.

WHILE many of the participating countries, played many practice matches, Ghana drew with a makeshift South African national team- Bafana Bafana, and later beat South African club side, Platinum Stars—two nil.

WHAT made many Ghanaians edgy about Ghana’s participation was also about the non-playing time of many of the team’s top players with their club sides. Captain John Mensah had been a peripheral player in French side—Olympic Lyon; deputy skipper, John Painstil, has not been involved at Leicester City for close to three months while Jonathan Mensah and John Boye only came out of various degrees of injuries just at the nick of the tournament.

THERE are other young players like Mohammed Abu, Jordan Ayew and Masawudu Alhassan whose inclusion in the final 23-man team of the Black Stars raised a lot of eye-brows because of their inexperience and lack of temperament for such a big stage like the African Cup of Nations.

INDEED all these problems made many Ghanaians quite apprehensive about the chances of Ghana in the tournament and although the team is quite on course, so far, the Stars have failed to glitter as a team and indeed, it took the brilliance of Dede and Gyan for the Stars to beat a well drilled Malian side.

NO matter the result we get from the tournament, we believe the competition should teach us some vital lessons. The fact that so far players like Agyemang Badu, Dede Ayew, Kwadwo Asamoah and to some extent Anthony Annan, have upstaged the well established players in the team clearly shows how getting playing time at club level enhances the performance of players on national duty.

YES! John Mensah and John Paintsil have played quite well in the tournament, yet we believe their performances would have been within the bracket of top-notch performers, if they had had more playing time at club level.

AFTER the tournament, Ghana will begin with two-prone qualifiers for both the World Cup and AFCON ‘13 against improved Zambia and Sudan and we believe the mistakes that we made in the AFCON will inform proper selection of players for the national team.

FOR now, we can only wish the Black Stars well in the coming matches at the on-going AFCON tournament.