Local players should be the foundation of the Black Stars – Starlets assistant coach

The Assistant Coach of the Black Starlets (U-17), Nana Kweku Agyemang, has asserted why the senior national team, The Black Stars, should be a mix of players primarily made up of local talents.

To buttress his point, he noted that hardworking local players would check complacency on the part of players from the diaspora and would also play with much more zeal, seeing the call-up as a big opportunity to prove themselves.

Considering the abysmal performance of the Black Stars lately, he argued that the coach was not the main problem as some may hold.

“I don’t think the coach is so much of a problem. I think we as Ghanaians would have to look at our challenges holistically,” Nana Kweku Agyemang said.

“We have a league going on in Ghana, a premier league. One of the questions I always ask is, is there any country in this world that assembles only foreign-based players to play in the national team? Once you do that, then it’s as if we don’t have belief in our local league. These foreign-based players are very, very good players, but I think we should find locally-based players to give them a little bit of challenge in the camp.”

International players “should know that, ‘If I’m not there, somebody is picking up my position.’ You know what I mean. Again, the locally-based players are really looking for all these opportunities. If we put them up, mix them up with these foreign-based players, I think that we can achieve a lot,” he emphasized.

The Assistant Coach of the Black Starlets spoke to Channel One TV.

In June 2024, Vision FC announced the appointment of Nana Kweku Agyemang as their new head coach as they prepared for their debut in the Ghana Premier League.

An alumnus of the University of Calgary, Canada, Nana Kweku Agyemang has a great interest in and a track record of player development.