Kotoko-Hearts game, the poorest ever

All the rivalry and big matches have peculiar names and captions that make a particular encounter an enticing game for the football world.

Every league playing nation has two rivals and glamorous clubs that entertain their crowd. Spain have two titans, Real Madrid and Barcelona, ltaly can boast of AC and Inter Milan, England too have Manchester United versus Liverpool. On our own continent of Africa, lvory Coast have Asec Mimosas-Africa Sports, Tunisia enjoy the service of Esperance-Etoile Du Sahel as well as Egypt, where Al Ahly and Zamalek are making the legacy of rivalry a reality.

So, you could see that, all the above mentioned rivalry in tensed clubs are variably, those who by their sound performance, sell their respective countries around the globe. The Kotoko-Hearts clash is probably not different from such achievements based upon their past performances outside Ghana. No wonder every football loving supporter, irrespective of his or her country, loves to watch encounters between these two clubs.

Football, is not only about wining but also its beauty and entertaining aspect that makes the game the most popular among all sport. The Kotoko versus Hearts, match for the sake of TV Rights and supposed anticipation of its attractiveness, drew everybody on their set and looking at DSTV Supersport 9 beaming the encounter live you could see that, it was not only Ghanaian supporters who watched the game.

The match, undeservedly exceeded its rate record of 2 million Ghana Cedis because, the supporters wanted to see a good football from both teams but what we saw was very disappointing, it was below expectations and the hype attributed to game.

The performance comes nowhere near all those accolade of names which preceded the game. It looked as if the pitch was small for the teams, lack of possessive football for even a second was a problem. Inaccurate passes, unnecessary fouls and impotent attacking forces that were technically hidden throughout the game.

The problem stems from lack of good materials, apart from experienced Laryea Kingston who made few intelligent incursions and the somewhat few long drives that Kotoko players made, the game was boring and ordinary to watch.

I implore both clubs’ top hierarchies to purchase quality materials that would match the standard of Ghana’s El-Classico play. It was shameful, watching it live on DSTV, even Kenya and Zambia top liners are better than the type of football Kotoko and Hearts sold to us.

Both teams must comes to terms why over the last 2 years their names have not appeared on the lnternational Federation for Football History and Statistics(IFFHS)’s top 400 clubs rankings. There is time for them to go back to drawing board to find a better solution to this menace, they must spend in the transfer window market for quality players rather than only selling.

They should emulate Ah Aly of Egypt who even without playing a league match in Egypt for almost 7 months, still went on to win their 7th CAF Champions League trophy. It was not by an accident because they spent on quality players both in and outside their country.

So far, the most unattractive and uncompetitive Kotoko-Hearts encounters Ghana ever witnessed came off at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium last Sunday.

I am done.