Kwesi Appiah –Are We Missing The Point?

Are we missing the point? The issue of who coaches the Black Stars should not be one of a preference of one colour over another but of competence. And this happens to be such an important job, and one we cannot afford to gamble with. So why is Kwesi Appiah our national coach? To be fair to the man, he was captain of both Asante Kotoko and the Black Stars and so despite his apparent total lack of charisma, he must have certain qualities that endear him to men and make them want him as their leader.

Yet, we are talking here of a man who quit football in the early nineties and completely disappeared from the football radar till he suddenly reappeared as assistant coach of the Black Stars in 2008! Kwesi Appiah has never coached a club side. How much experience does one realistically obtain being an assistant coach of the Black Stars for four years?

In those four years he has been assistant coach, I doubt if he has had six months of actual training with the Black Stars, given that the players train for only a day or two before most matches and for about three to four weeks in major tournaments. How much experience would he have gathered in that period to suddenly propel him from a man with no coaching experience to the Black Stars coach? How much input did he have in the team? How come a man who worked under coaches like Stepanovic, lambasted in Ghana for their poor performance, suddenly appears to have learnt so much from these same coaches as to warrant promotion to the top job?

Where is Silas Tetteh? Silas did not play at the highest level, but he was successful as a club coach at Liberty Professionals and was actually involved in the early football development of players like Essien and Kwadwo Asamoah. He led Ghana to win the world cup in an age group where our legendary “age –cheating” gave us little advantage. He has since then, actually served as a national manager of Rwanda. And lest we forget, he also worked under foreign coaches like the respected Claude le Roy. Why did Silas not get the job?

Having played football at the highest level does not necessarily guarantee success as a coach. Pep Guardiola played at the highest level but he spent years out of the limelight toiling day and night and proving his worth in the Barcelona youth teams before being given the top job. At the national level, Jurgen Klinsmann was appointed Germany coach in 2004 with no coaching experience at all but, this is a guy who had played in three world cups, helping Germany to win the 1990 edition along the way. Even then, Germany recruited some of the best coaching brains in Germany at the time, not least Joachim Loew, who is now the respected incumbent German coach, to assist him. When Jurgen Klinsmann joined Bayern Munich after the world cup, he left within a year!

Be it as it may, the appointment has already been made and whether we like it or not, Kwesi Appiah is our national coach! Is he doomed for failure? Not necessarily, if he does not proceed to surround himself with “yes men” who pose no threat to his job security. Or if he is not coerced by the GFA, for financial reasons, to accept their choice of second class coaches as assistants. He will succeed if he is brave enough to recruit some of the best Ghanaian football brains to assist him.

So, who am I thinking of? Firstly, he needs to have in the dressing room an experienced Ghanaian coach with the requisite credentials but whose past is not tainted with periods of failure with the national team –Sunday Ibrahim! Why Sunday Ibrahim has never been given a decent run with the national team beats me. This is a guy who played for Werder Bremen and honed his tactical skills in Germany. This is a guy who is a proven winner and a great motivator and tactician. Kwesi Appiah was his captain in Asante Kotoko and I believe he will be all too pleased to assist his former pupil in his time of need.

Then, Kwesi Appiah needs a young Ghanaian coach who not only played for years in Germany for Borussia Dortmund and for Freiberg, but has taken the trouble to acquire his coaching certificates and is respected enough to have been appointed assistant coach of FC Koln in Germany – Ibrahim Tanko. If Kwesi Appiah feels intimidated by, and cannot manage Tanko as a member of his coaching team, what chance would he have of managing Prince Boateng for instance on the playing side? I don’t know how much Tanko earns now and I don’t pretend to know the guy but I believe he would be flattered to be invited home to help prepare his country for the world cup.

Edward Ansah would continue to coach the goalkeepers but would be given more responsibility with the team as a whole. This “dream team” of Kwesi Appiah, supported by Ibrahim Tanko, Sunday Ibrahim and Edward Ansah would have the requisite combination of experience, expertise and patriotism to achieve the best results for Ghana. But in addition, Kwesi must ensure the authorities sign a top class physical trainer. I don’t have any name to mind, but there must be a Ghanaian somewhere who fits the bill. He must also have a say in the appointment of a new medical team.

Kwesi must take this opportunity to hire top lawyers to negotiate a good contract on his behalf. The financial security that would bring would mean that he would not have to succumb to the whims and caprices of the GFA and the hangers-on with no clue about football who call themselves the Black Stars Management Committee, for fear of losing his job. He would be his own man. After all, if he allowed others to make decisions for him and he failed, he would be sacked! So he might as well make his own decisions and go down fighting. I pray, for the sake of Ghana and for his own sake, that it does not come to that and we will all be singing his praises, come next year.

Good luck!!

Papa Appiah lexeve@yahoo.co.uk Papaappiah.blogspot.com