Black Stars threw away national pride

Several sports fans who trooped to the stadium to witness the Harambee Stars play against the Black Stars in a game to commemorate the independence celebration of the East Africans left disappointed because of the cricket scoreline the hosts suffered on December 11, 1965.

A 13-2 scoreline will still remain on the minds of many Kenyans because it is their worst loss in an international football game.

Fast forward, the 1965 defeat would still haunt them as they succumbed to the West African giants in the 1980 Olympic Games qualifiers. Ghana won the away tie 1-0.

When the Harambee Star were drawn in Group F with the Black Stars, many Kenyans wouldn’t give their national team any chance in the home and away fixtures against Ghana.

It was realized from the posture of the playing body of the Harambee Stars who were not willing to honour the invitation of their head coach for the tie.

No wonder Victor Wanyama who had made an injury return at Tottenham failed to accept the invitation for the Ghana clash. He also didn’t make himself available to be assessed by the national team doctor.

Indeed, the Kenyans were not expecting much from the game against Ghana and from the word go, the Black Stars were rated as the overwhelming favourite.

On paper, Ghana was miles ahead of Kenya in all the parameters used to analyse how a team would fare in a game.

Ghana ranked 45th in the world. Kenya rated 112th on the FIFA ranking.

The Black Stars have been churning out the results lately in international games. The team defeated Japan 2-0 and came from two goals down to share the spoils with Iceland in their preparation for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

There is this assertion that Kwesi Appiah’s Black Stars mostly fly high against lower ranked teams in the world. On Saturday, this wasn’t meant to be.

Ghana faced a Kenyan team with no 'big-name' player. The star man of the team Wanyama had just made an injury return, so he didn’t join the team. Despite this, they defied all the odds to battle it out against a star-studded Black Stars team.

One would ask himself what went wrong for the Black Stars:

Ghana played one of their poorest games in recent times. The team played as if there was nothing at stake. The team lacked the cutting edge and there wasn’t any bite in the attacking force of the team.

The individual players who were expected to rise to the occasion failed to do that. Thomas Partey and Cristian Atsu were expected to ride the team on, but they went to sleep throughout the game and their influence wasn’t felt.

The Newcastle winger couldn’t deliver the right crosses and his genius moves in midfield didn’t come to bare, while Thomas Partey’s passes and eye for goals were missing.

Majeed Waris failed to be the saviour of the Black Stars. The Nantes striker has been a pale shadow of himself ever since he put up a standout performance in Ghana’s 6-1 win against Egypt in the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

In Saturday’s game, Waris should have hit the back of the net on two different occasions. When he was presented with the opportunities to score, he fluffed them.

Aside Waris, Afriyie, Acquah wasted the best chance of the game when he headed over the crossbar after the goalkeeper had been beaten.

Ghana, couldn’t dominate the midfield, which has over the years been the engine of the team. Afriyie Acquah, Ebenezer Ofori, Cristian Atsu and Edwin Gyasi were not able to control the game.

The Black Stars made a comedy of errors in defence. How on this earth should a player like Nicholas Opoku direct not too dangerous a ball into his own net?

Kwesi Appiah failed to vary his tactics: The Black Stars coach couldn’t unlock the defence of a ten-man Harambee Stars after they had even gone down by one man. They played an estimated 30 minutes with ten men, yet still, they had their way out and they didn’t allow Ghana to put them under pressure.

Kwesi Appiah was expected to make the right changes that could have affected the tempo of the game. It was anticipated that nothing would have changed if the referee had added an additional 30 minutes to the game.

That's how bad the Black Stars of Ghana were.