Admittedly, and as shattering as it may feel, the general quality of the senior men’s national team has significantly waned. One doesn’t even need to look harder enough to come to this bitter conclusion.
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Black Stars remain as fragile as ever and CK Akonnor’s dismissal tackles little (Pulse Contributor's Opinion)
Farewell, then, CK Akonnor. As the curtain is brought down on the short-lived union between the Black Stars and Akonnor, as public conversations continue to centre around the latest sporting casualty on the local scene, one thing emerges crystal clear: there’s no magic formula in completely resolving the issues of the Black Stars in the short term.
Black Stars remain as fragile as ever and CK Akonnor’s dismissal tackles little (Pulse Contributor's Opinion)
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While the Black Stars about a decade ago shone so dazzlingly bright and carried the hopes of an entire continent, and all but broke into the last four at the 2010 World Cup, the current iteration remains a far cry, remains anything but fun.
And so it came as a complete shocker when the President of the land, H.E Nana Akufo-Addo tasked the team to win the 2021 AFCON. Further adding that, the 2010 feat in South Africa is repeatable and even surmountable when good preparation and talent collide, when these two elements intermix.
Andre Ayew and CK Akonnor
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“We must also reach at least the semi-finals of the World Cup in Qatar. Our exploits in 2010, where we reached the quarter finals in South Africa, tell us that once prepared, we have the quality and the talent to match any of the best teams in the world. The task might seem daunting, but it is exactly not insurmountable,” were his exact words.
Five months down the line, those words spoken so powerfully in April appear now to be less a motivational speech than mere words. CK Akonnor has gotten the sack, the Black Stars have garnered three points from a possible six in a tricky group, and qualification to play in the upcoming World Cup hangs in the balance.
To some degree, the hasty sacking of CK Akonnor by the GFA was an act to appease the bemoaning public, to accede to their pleas, to find a common enemy, a scapegoat of some sort, and further create the disillusionment that whatever that is broken is fixable, whatever imaginatively lost could be gained, whatever died could be resurrected.
Yet, this current Black Stars side, in spite of a few A-list players, exists largely as a team without a soul, a conscience, a backbone. Has become a place where unknown quantities playing in the third tier of the German league get call-ups to their own astonishment, disbelieving of their luck.
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In the before times, the incomparable Asamoah Gyan could be relied upon for decisive goals. Even in the thick of affairs, could conjure up a moment of sheer brilliance to haul along the Black Stars and also the millions back home watching, as he did against Algeria in the 2015 AFCON. But now, when the going gets tough, who do we look up to? Who would bend the game to their will like Gyan did?
The team a decade before exuded inspiration: Muntari, Essien, Stephen Appiah, Kwadwo Asamoah, Gyan, etc etc and so on. Now beside Thomas Partey and Dede Ayew, at a push, Wakaso, where else to find inspiration?
The premature exit of Ghana in the 2019 AFCON at the hands of Tunisia was not just a blip or an inconsequential bump in the road, but rather a reality check of the shape of things to come.
And so as the Black Stars emerge under the leadership of CK Konnor, with exciting prospects in Mohammed Kudus and Sulemana Kamaldeen, things come together and then fall apart all at once, results come and then go, and a painful struggle to score goals, a constant.
Maybe it’s time we realise pinning all the blame on the coach who even can’t work autonomously of the FA hardly solves the problem. Maybe it’s time we realise the cheerful days are long over and far gone and now a distant memory.
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Sacked CK Akonnor
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Maybe it’s time we lower our expectations, and accept the hard, unadulterated truth: that to return to our former heights, this team will need time and patience, nursing and nurturing, gentle kisses and fondling.
The dismissal of CK Akonnor appears a little too harsh, yet to an extent it also feels as though he was the architect of his own demise.
When he accepted all those lofty expectations and publicly declared his team will play breathtaking football, only for the Black Stars to churn out vapid displays match after match, he dug himself a grave and then jumped straight into it.
It remains to be seen how the new coach breathes life into this banal Black Stars team. But expectations to win the forthcoming AFCON and reach the semis of the World Cup in Qatar should be completely banished.
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Bright Antwi
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