Kwesi Appiah Crashes The Dream

The Senior National Team, the Black Stars lacklustre performance against their Sudanese counterparts last Sunday have compelled me to re-visit the debate whether a local coach is capable of handling the team.

After the departure of Serbian Coach, Milovan Rajevac, a lot of Ghanaian football fanatics have called on the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to give the Black Stars job to a local coach but the big question is which local coach can handle the team? Names like current caretaker coach Kwesi Appiah, David Duncan, Bashiru Hayford, Silas Tetteh and Abdul Razak have all been mentioned for the job.

I was one of those people clamouring that the team should be given to Kwesi Appiah because he was assistant to the Serbian coach but after last Sundays dismal performance I strongly believe he is not ready yet and for now no local coach is capable to handle the team.

From what I observed last Sunday, the former Black Stars defender lack technical direction, his selection and substitution of players for the game was questionable, the team couldn’t put more than five passes together, the was tactical indiscipline and to crown it all we couldn’t even utilised any of the numerous set pieces that we had.

John Mensah has just come back from injury and I think he should have played Vorsah and Jonathan Mensah in the central of defence and played Samuel Inkoom ahead of the young Jordan Ayew.

Kwesi Appiah should have used the Sudan game to make a strong case for local coaches but he failed to do that thus the dream of local coaches to handle the team now belongs to history.

Most of our local coaches have not been on refresher courses and the game has changed since they last took their courses. I once heard Golden Boy Abdul Razak on Hot FM, a local radio station in Ghana and when asked by the host which UEFA licence does he hold, he answered that coaching is not about Licence but your ability to do the job on the field. Wondering what ability he is taking about.

The have been calls from some quarters that the the Black Stars job should be given to Marcel Desailly but I am wondering if Marcel is a local or foreign coach since he is currently residing in Ghana. Anyway, that is another topic for discussion.

Since the Black Stars job became vacant how many local coaches have publicly declared their interest in handling the national team. If the GFA wants the Black Stars to maintain their world cup momentum then they need to appoint a new foreign coach before our next Nations Cup qualifiers in March 2011. A word to the wise....

Ekow Omagbemi Arthur, Chorlton, Manchester