It's time egos give way for the good of Ghana

Michael Oti Adjei questions Goran Stevanovic's Ghana selections, and questions whether the Black Stars can make it at the Africa Cup of Nations.

There are some things football players and coaches hate. They must never be questioned, the truth hurts their souls. When things are not going well for them they consider it an aberration to say.

That attitude has been evident throughout as we battle where the Black Stars goes from its present state and debate the issue of whether there is a strong enough squad to win the Africa Cup of Nations.

It is a debate fraught with many pitfalls for everyone who wants to get involved. In a country where healthy debate is a rare commodity, the tendancy has been to overlook the obvious, pretend you don't see and take sollace in the bogus argument that there is a man paid to make the calls.

Goran Stevanovic was clearly thinking along those lines when he took exception to a question I raised about the number of players he calls in the national team who don't play for their clubs against the standard he himself has set.

His passionate defense of his decisions was admirable. It showed he cared about what we says. Yet a few weeks after that, week in, week out, we have reason to raise the same issues again.

Ghana is setting herself up for Nations Cup glory next year. Thirty years after last winning the tournament in Libya, there is a feeling that 2012 may well be the year we crack it finally.

And the grounds for the optimism and belief are well grounded. Egypt and Cameroon who have won ten Nations Cup titles between them will not be in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea next year. Tunisia will be the only winner from the last ten years present.

But the optimism is not only due to who is absent. It is also in large part to what Ghana has done on the pitch. World Cup quarter finalists, Nations Cup semi-finalists in 2008, Nations Cup finalists in 2010.

Football is not some sort of logic where you simply say it will follow that in 2012 Ghana will win. But those who have invested their emotions into the Black Stars have every right to feel that in 2012 their team must go a step further. They have seen events on the pitch to convince themselves it is possible.

Many of those people too hate the truth. They hate to hear that Ivory Coast will be strong next year. They hate to hear that Senegal have a side that is buzzing with attacking quality Ghana can only drool at. They hate above all to hear that like Senegal, many of Ghana's players have gone downhill since two brilliant back to back world cup performances.

It is a touchy subject. There is nothing more difficult than dealing with players who by their actions on the pitch have elevated themselves to hero statuses. They play out of their skin, they make a nation proud, we sing their names at the peak of their game. And then one morning we realise there is a problem. They are not as good as they used to be. And for a national team, we sense that the one major criteria you use in calling up players which is their club form is absent.

It is a classic dilema, one Senegal could not deal with after their 2002 generation did so remarkable at the world cup. Players kept their national team places by virtue of their performance in beating France, in reaaching the quarter final. It didnt matter that at club level many of them had lost their way and that younger, more energetic players were available.

Ghana is at that point now. It was only last week that Ben Koufie was praising coach Goran Stevanovic for the manner he has brought young players through the system. It is thrilling listening to Koufie and he made a good case for the Serbian.

He also spoke of the dilemas coaches have to deal with. None is bigger than what Stevanovic will be dealing with now. He has been in Ghana watching some local games. If he turns on his TV like most of us do too, he would have seen at the touch of a remote, a mouse how his players fare in Europe. It paints a contradictory picture. It is a picture that should agitate the thinking mind too.

Some of the players who have become Black Stars untouchables don't get to play for their clubs. Yet they are the ones who have served up this country nice and good. They have been responsible for the good days, feel we owe them a favour and don't want to hear anything else. Those who don't get called up are the ones turning on the screws at club level.

You simply can't bench players because they are not playing. Take the case of John Paintsil and John Mensah. They provide badly needed experience in the Ghana defence. And for a defence that wants to win the Nations Cup that is fundamental. Bare in mind this is a defence with a rookie goalkeeper at international level in Adam Larsen Kwarasey who is yet to hit double figures in international caps. Isaac Vorsah has looked at his best with John Mensah by his side. And with the left back slot far from solved ignoring Mensah and Paintsil because they don't get game time at Leicester and Lyon will be suicidal especially when in the case of Mensah the ready made options are Jonathan Mensah whose club form is nowhere near as good and the often shaky Lee Addy.

Richard Kingson was in the same privileaged position as John Mensah and John Paintsil. But we became convinced at a point that his lack of first team activity was hampering us and gave him up. It was easy to do that because we discovered an Adam Larsen Kwarasey who has been Mr Consistent in the Norway top flight.

Beyond that the options available in other areas of the field makes you wonder the basis for some call-ups and ommissions. When last weekend, thanks to the power of television, we watched as Andre Ayew took his season's tally to six goals. But that was not what caught my eye. It was how well his kid brother Jordan Ayew played down the right for Marseille. Confidence in possesion, he had an ability to take on defenders that belies his 20 years.

That same weekend in Italy, Kevin-Prince Boateng scored a hat-trick, Kwadwo Asamoah and Agyemang Badu helped Udinese to victory to send them top of Serie A. In Rome, Afriyie Acquah was playing for 82 minutes as Palermo lost at AS Roma.

There was a trend about the performance of Ghanaian players that struck me. It was that our two best players in Europe are out of favour and out of love with our national boss. Goran Stevanovic has a right to instil any disciplinary code he wants in his team. He is paid a huge sum of money to get the best out of our resources.

Yet there is something odd when the rest of us look from the outside and realise that oddly some of our most regular players in Europe have had all the falling outs.

Stevanovic met members of the Black Stars technical team and promised he has things in the side under control. He is the boss, he says and he won't allow the team to disintengrate amidst concerns about emerging factions and all.

What he has to convince the rest of us too is whether he has the temprement to deal with some of those egos. Coaches handle players in different ways and when the result is in their favour they are geniuses for that. In football though it is inevitable that coaches will have to deal with strong headed individuals.

Even as an observer, Kevin-Prince Boateng got under my skin from a distance a few times. In Swaziland he seemed to spend eternity complaining about everything. His Congo absence and miraculous recorvery for the England game upset his own fellow players. When he played his first home game in Kumasi it was a huge anti climax largely because he did not try enough.

And his decision to ignore the phone calls of Stevanovic would anger a lot of us. But coaches have always found a way of dealing with strong heads. When GFA president Kwasi Nyantekyie got on a plane to speak to him in Milan he got stick in some quarters. Yet what do you do when you sit in his high chair and observe that your best players at club level are not involved at national level?

The case against Dede Ayew and the manner he pulled out of the Brazil game; revealing an injury in transit in Amsterdam is compelling too.

But at some point something has to give. Those two players, not the most liked by their fellow players you have to say must understand that to thrive in a team you need to operate at their level. Above all it is fundamental that they give the boss the respect he deserves and treat him with the same reverence they would do a Massimilano Allegri or Didier Deschamps.

The boss in this case Stevanovic must understand that in a country with very little high performers in Europe these two are a premium.

And they have showed they have value. Between them they have scored ten goals this season. Dede Ayew has scored more goals this season for Olympic Marseille than Asamoah Gyan has at club level. So has Kevin-Prince Boateng.

In 2010 when Ghana went all the way to the final of the Nations Cup and the quarter-finals of the World Cup their contributions were tangible. Gyan bagged six in both competitons. The other goals were supplied by Dede Ayew in that crucial game against Burkina Faso at the group stage of the Nations Cup and the second round game of the world cup. The moral of the story: these are midfielders with goals in them. And in a team where apart from Gyan our strikers just can't find the path to goal that is vital.

It is all nice and easy to claim Ghana reached the Nations Cup without them. Nyantekyie knows and so does any smart football person that in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea next year it will not be about beating Congo, Swaziland and Sudan. The task will be much much bigger than that. And at that stage you will need all the quality you can call on. The surest way to see that quality is simply by observing who is doing it at club level. Boateng and Ayew define those qualities now.

Michael Oti Adjei