Plavi stays, but what next…?

THE Ghana Football Association (GFA) has offered the lifeline to Serbian trainer of the Black Stars, Goran Stevanovic, aka Plavi; to continue with the coaching of the national team. At least by the GFA fiat, the Serbian trainer is expected to see through his contract which has a year running. 

MANAGEMENT of the GFA stated at a post Cup of Nations press briefing that the decision to retain Plavi was necessitated by the fact that despite the failure of the Black Stars to win the 28^th African Cup of Nations (AFCON), the Serbian achieved majority of the bench marks set for him.

INDEED we agree with the GFA decision to retain the Serbian but with some reservations and conditions. And if we are to judge the coach on his own sworn words to see to an end to Ghana’s 30 year old AFCON Cup drought, then the coach should have vacated his post right after Ghana’s abortive third position match against Mali.  Ghana lost the match 2-0 to our Northern West African neighbours.

THE paper believes, Plavi’s continued stay with the national team is basically due to some remarkable successes that he has chalked since his one year stint on the Stars’ job. By conservative estimate, Today believes Plavi has scored close to 70 percent success and that might have influenced the GFA decision to let him see through his contract, despite calls by some Ghanaians for the abrogation of the coach’s contract.

YET we believe Plavi ought to learn, and rather fast, if he wants to stay and improve on his performance with the Black Stars. His compatriot, Ratomir Djukovic, (Doya) had a torrid tournament at the Egypt 2006 African Cup of Nations but managed to record some remarkable success at the Germany World Cup tournament later in that year because he learnt quickly to fix the jig-saw in the Black Stars set-up.

SHORT of an outright interference in his job, Doya realized that there were some suggestions from stakeholders of Ghana Football that he could not parry off that easily. He therefore heeded to suggestions to include some players in the Black Stars’ team that participated in the World Cup.

THERE was no blanket inclusion though for the players who were proposed. Instead, he tried them in series of trial matches that he organized and therefore became convinced that Richard Kingson, Eric Addo, Otto Addo and Samuel Osei Kufuor were relevant to his team building. That was after some of the budding players that Doya used in the Cup of Nations had failed rather woefully in the Egypt AFCON championship.

THAT is the more reason why Plavi should give ears to suggestions that players like Nana Kwasi Asare of FC Utrecht in Holland; Harrison Afful of Esperance du Tunis in Tunisia, David Addy who plies his trade in Greece and locals like Emmanuel Baffour, Rashid Sumaila, Emmanuel Clottey, Yaw Frimpong and Awal Mohammed ought to be assessed, considered and possibly consider other illegible Ghanaians outside of the country.

MUCH as we would not countenance indiscipline in the Black Stars, the coach should be very tactful in his approach to issues of player dissent and other acts that might breed indiscipline in the team. Many good players have fallen out with their coaches because of their bloated egos; yet such managers have managed to bring out the very best out of them. Why not Plavi?

THERE should also be real reconciliation in the Black Stars. A move that we believe would bring players who have fallen out with the Stars’ trainer back to the Black Stars. That means Plavi needs to reconcile with a player like Kevin Prince Boateng, the AC Milan player, whose quality has easily endeared him to the San Siro fans.

AS we make efforts to get Asamoah Gyan back to the Black Stars, we should do same to Kevin. Indeed his decision is not cast in iron. We are aware that Kevin’s decision not to play for the Black Stars was as a result of misunderstanding between him and Plavi and not any other consideration.

THE Stars have a serious 2014 World Cup and 2013 Cup of Nations qualifiers mid-year and nothing should be left to chance in our quest to qualify for the two major tournaments.