Unique facts about the Black Stars' coaching history

fiifi anaman

March 13, 2017 6:53 PM

Pulse Sports takes you through some interesting facts about the coaching history of the Ghana national football team

Did you know that...

--Ghana has been coached by 33 men since independence.

---Ghana's first coach, George Edward Ainsley, was an English who was hired in March 1958. Before his appointment, the country - even through the Gold Coast years - had never appointed a professional coach for the national team.

READ MORE: James Kwesi Appiah

---Out of the 33 coaches, only 9 have been Ghanaians. Two of these nine have won major trophies with the team: Charles Kumi 'CK' Gyamfi, who won the Africa Cup of Nations titles in 1963, 1965 and 1982 and Fred Osam Doudu who won the Afcon in 1978.

---A total 24 expatriates have coached Ghana in the past, the most recent one being Israeli Avram Grant (2014-2017). Despite being in the majority, none of the 24 foreigners has won a trophy with the team.

READ MORE: Application Process

---Germany alone has produced 6 different coaches for the Black Stars: Karl-Heinze Marotzke (1968-1970), Karl-Heinze Weigang (1974-75), Rudi Gutendorf (85-86), Burkhard Ziese (1990-92, 2003), Otto Pfister (1992-93) and Ralph Zumdick (2003). In terms of nations to produce Black Stars coaches, Germany (6 coaches) comes only second to Ghana (9 coaches).

---Serbia is third on the list of nations to have produced the most Black Star coaches with 4: Milan Zivadinovic (2002), Ratomir Djukovic (2004-06), Milovan Rajevac (2008-10), Goran Stevanovic (2011-2012). Two of these coaches, Djukovic and Rajevac, qualified Ghana to the World Cup.

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---The youngest ever Black Stars coach was an astonishing 24 years old when he took the job. His name? Carlos Alberto Parraira from Brazil. Yes, the same Parraira who won the World Cup as coach of Brazil in 1994. In 1967, as a student fresh out of school, he was sent to Ghana to coach the national team after the Ghana government had asked the Brazilians for a coach to help build the Black Stars. Parraira coached Ghana to second place at the 1968 Afcon.

--- Parraira is one of three Brazilians to have coached Ghana: the others are Oswaldo Carlos Sampaio (1977-78) and Ismael Kurtz (1996).

READ MORE: Grant's Successor

---The youngest indigenous coach to manage the Black Stars was C.K Gyamfi. In January 1962, at the age of 33, he became Ghana's first black coach.

--Edward Aggrey Fynn is the oldest man to have managed the Black Stars. Fynn - who captained the team from 1960-1964 - was 60 years old when he was handed the job in 1994.

---German Rudi Gutendorf is the oldest foreigner to have coached the team. He was 59 years old when he managed the team in 1985. Gutendorf coached 18 national teams in his career, the most national teams ever managed by a single man.

---Five of the 33 coaches have coached the team more than once. They are: C.K Gyamfi (three stints), Fred Osam Duodu (five stints), Emmanuel Kwasi Afranie (two stints), Burkhard Ziese (two stints) and Sam Arday (two stints).

***If Kwesi Appiah returns to the team, as is being widely speculated, he would join this esteemed list***

READ MORE: Black Stars

---Thus the late Fred Osam Duodu (1978-81, 1988-89, 1993, 2000, 2001-02) is the coach to have managed the Black Stars the most times.

---No coach from any other African country apart from Ghana has coached the Black Stars.

---No coach from North America or Asia has coached the team.

---Four of Ghana's 33 coaches were former players of the national team (C.K Gyamfi, Ben Koufie, Edward Aggrey Fynn and Jones Attuquayefio.

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