It is no secret that the GPL has always been a landscape of raw, genuine, brutal competitiveness. A place where it is virtually impossible to journey your way through to the very summit of the league unscathed. A sphere where three excellent results on the bounce could catapult you into the realms of wishful thinking, while, in sharp contrast, three woeful results on the trot could trigger a rapid descent into mediocrity. There is actually no space to breath for teams.
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Charged and exciting GPL title race approaches its own frictionless endgame.[Pulse Contributor’s Review]
With just 8 games left for the season to conclude, the Ghana Premier League title race is shaping up to serve us with a highly pleasurable sensation towards its own frictionless endgame.
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Take a fleeting glance at the league table, peer attentively at the wrestling clubs at the summit of the league crammed into the top six. And you will discover for yourself the slight gulf between first-placed Hearts of Oak and sixth-placed Dreams: 5 measly points. In part, this has always been the fundamental nature of the league: the inability of the two rich and elite clubs – Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko – to rapidly pull away from the chasing pack in contemporary times.
Candidly, there are no super-clubs here: no constant privileges given to the rich and famous, no respecter of persons a highlighted theme, no alarming fetish for the two most glamorous clubs. It’s anyone’s game here, really. Exactly why the top six sides in the league have taken turns to top the table at one point. There’s actually minimal time for any one club to fully savour and greatly relish being table toppers.
In view of this, it is completely understandable why it has taken Hearts of Oak - one of the two mega-clubs in the country - a little over six years to return to the summit of the league. After several years of trial and tribulations, of massive toil and astronomical industry, of untold sweat and blood, Samuel Boadu seems to have rediscovered Hearts of Oak’s long lost and almost forgotten mojo. Now there’s a feeling of something truly absorbing brewing. A sense that after several years of trying to scramble out of a bleak abyss, there could be light at the end of the tunnel this season.
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Of course, Asante Kotoko would not sit and watch and fold arms and cross legs as their arch-rivals accelerate into the distance and speed out of sight. With Fabio Gama, they have an equally decent shot at the league title. Levelled on points with Hearts of Oak, trailing them only on goal difference, it will be absolutely crass and inane to overlook the threat posed by this side.
The Porcupine Warriors remain the paragon of excellence in the Ghana Premier League. Having won the competition most, it is safe to say they have within their basic instinct and the general fabric of their being, the unrelenting urge to fight till the very end.
There is Accra Great Olympics, too, third-placed with only three points adrift of the top. A team who largely draw their inspiration from the dazzling Gladson Awako. Their impressive campaign has seen them obliterate both Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak. This is, after all, what makes their world tick to some degree: to tear down the big boys, to cause numerous upsets, to impede and thwart any team from building momentum for the latter stages of the league.
And so the final phase of the league seems promising. The endgame could offer us breathtaking suspense and electric, harrowing shocks to the human core. What is predictable is that the league will remain unpredictable till its frictionless endgame.
Pulse Contributors is an initiative to highlight diverse journalistic voices. Pulse Contributors do not represent the company Pulse and contribute on their own behalf "
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