Disappointing performance of local coaches

The litany of hobbles from one disappointment to another by the various national teams -the Black Starlets, the local Black Stars, Black Meteors, Black Queens and lately the Black Satellites have brought indigenous coaches under a barrage of criticism, in respect of their competence to handle the national teams.

In times past, the issue as to whether to entrust our national teams to Ghanaian coaches attracted dissenting views from various quarters.

While some are of the opinion that the local coaches have been sidelined for far too long, there were those who also held the view that the local coaches lacked the technical savvy to guide Ghana football to enviable heights.

In spite of the dissenting views, our football authorities trusted local coaches over the years with the national teams, and while some of them chalked up successes, others floundered, and as was normally the case, some noises would be made and the general refrain becomes -'what is the way forward'?

However, the downward spiral Ghana football has experienced in the last couple of weeks calls for not only expression of concerns, but pragmatic steps to arrest the situation, before the current darling national team, the Black Stars is also hit with the canker.

Following coach Stephen Frimpong Manso, Herbert Addo, David Duncan, A. K. Edusei and Orlando Wellington's disappointing performance with the various national teams, the expectation is that, perhaps, coach Kwasi Appiah, the coach of the second tier team of the Black Stars, would be feeling the unease generated by his compatriots' below par performance.

But contrary to that expectation, Kwasi Appiah says he is feeling no pressure whatsoever, as he has been assigned the duty of sending the team to Sierra Leone for an international friendly match, as part of activities marking that country's Golden Jubilee independence anniversary celebrations.

The Black Stars will depart Accra on Thursday, and as the team readies to play the Leone Stars, the question that will engage the minds of many is, 'can Kwasi Appiah pull the chestnut out of the blazing fire'?

This question comes against the background that Kwasi Appiah himself failed to live up to expectation when he took charge of the national team, the Black Stars, to play a Nations Cup qualifier against Sudan.

That game ended in a disappointing 0-0, and no sooner had the referee brought proceedings to an end than the debate as to whether the team should be given to a Ghanaian or a foreigner was rekindled.

It was a time Milovan Rajevac had given up on the job after the Stars' sterling performance at the World Cup, had endeared him to other teams.