Editorial: Between Milovan's Head and Heart

The Head Coach of the Black Stars, Milovan Rajevac, has come under serious criticisms from a section of football fans in Ghana and other African countries, for snubbing his fellow technical staff, after Ghana defeated Serbia, his home country, by one goal to nil, in their opening group match of the ongoing World Cup tournament in South Africa.

Coach Milovan's refusal to celebrate a victory he was supposed to have hatched, questions his professional attitude and commitment level. He rather looked defeated after the match, and grief was seen written all over his face.

In fact, the Coach's post-match interview about the same match did a lot of harm to his professional ability as a coach.

According to Milovan, "Perhaps we (Ghana) got more lucky than them (Serbia), because we scored one goal, and we obtained three points today. I hope Serbia can pick up six points from their next two games."

Any objective football analyst will not say that a team that hit its opponent's goal post twice was lucky, as the Black stars looked more the offensive side than Serbia.

When Ghana was drawn in the same group with Serbia, media reports had it that the Serbian authority had tempted to pull down the private residence of Coach Milovan Rajevac in a demolition exercise in his native Serbia.

He is also reported to have received several life-threatening text messages, and therefore coming into the World Cup, the coach seemed to have been caught between a rock and a hard place.

Much as The Chronicle would like to sympathise with Coach Milo's predicament, we believe, as a professional, he should not allow his heart to rule over his head.

We also do not want to believe that his last minute substitutions, which some people have questioned, were to slow down the Black Stars' momentum. Ghanaians have to be able to trust the professional judgement of Coach Milo at all times, and against any opposition.

The Chronicle does not want a revisit of similar occurrences when coaches have intentionally led their teams to the slaughter against their home countries.

In the 1974 World Cup, the Zairean team, coached by a Yugoslav, was beaten 9-0 by Yugoslavia.

In the 1990 World Cup in Italy, Cameroun, then coached by a Russian, lost 4-0 to then USSR. A Yugoslav, Bora Milutinovic, coached Nigeria when it lost by 3-0 in the 1998 France World Cup to Yugoslavia.

In 2002, Winfried Schafer, a German, coached Cameroun to the World Cup and they lost 2-0 to Germany.

On the flip side, Bruno Metsu, a Frenchman, coached Senegal to beat France in the 2002 World Cup.

Therefore, Coach Milo's victory should be seen as the beginning of a new era, where professionalism should not be sacrificed on the altar of partisan sentiments. Naturally, Coach Milovan's heart will go to Serbia, but for the professional that he is, his head must be for Ghana.