The Black Stars have qualified but Akwesi Appiah must improve

The Black Stars have successfully booked their place in next year’s soccer jamboree to be staged in football’s most successful nation (Brazil) thus making it their third consecutive appearance at the global showpiece.

Indeed, Coach Akwesi Appiah has solidified his name in the history books of Ghana by being the first black coach to qualify the nation for the world cup which is no mean an achievement to say the least.

Our elders in their wisdom have a saying that “a child who washes his hands properly has the privilege of dinning with elders” and in this regard, our country Ghana has washed its hands very well and therefore will have the privilege of competing with traditional football big wigs like Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Holland, Germany and Italy et’al.

Now that the qualifiers are well behind us and Ghana’s participation in the mundial is certain, the million Dollar issue in the minds of most Ghanaians is whether the black stars can replicate the awesome performances they displayed in Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010 or will they improve upon it? Well, we all live to see, however, with the quality of football being displayed at that level of the world game, one does not need the services of a soothsayer to tell him that you either do it big or you risk booking an early flight back home.

There is a popular saying in Dagbani that “In life, it’s not just about what you do but what matters most is the value of what you do”. Although the stars have comfortably secured their spot in next year’s soccer fiesta, every level headed soccer pundit will admit that the performance of the team as a collective unit leaves a lot to be desired and if Coach Akwesi Appiah really wants to make a mark in the world cup rather than just go there to add to the numbers, then he definitely needs to pull his shoulders to the wheel.

The mediocre performance of the team under coach Akwesi Appiah in the just ended edition of the AFCON which was staged in South Africa is ample testimony to the fact that our team fails to deliver the goods when it's needed most and that’s not what Ghanaians are expecting come next year June in Brazil.

Considering the fact that for nearly two years of serving as coach of the national team, Akwesi has not managed to couch out a defined system of play for the team, a defined system of creating attack and a defined strategy to recycle attack for the team with the quality of materials at his disposal is certainly a major cause to worry about.

The stars may have piped Zambia to top their group and then proceeded to humble Egypt with a convincing (7-3) aggregate in the playoff, however, any straight thinking person who appreciates the game very well will admit that these are not victories to rest on at all. The current Egyptian team is completely a pale shadow of the all conquering Egyptian team of yester years, they failed to even qualify for the African Nations cup in South Africa earlier this year and had a relatively mild group in the world cup qualifiers which consisted of sub-par teams like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Guinea.

The Zambian team which gave us a good run for our money in our own fortress (Baba yara) failed to make it past the group stages of the African nation’s cup in South Africa and could only manage to pick up three Draws in three games despite arriving in South Africa as defending champions. It may not be by chance that we trashed Egypt 6-1 in the first leg of the play-off in Kumasi but after a thorough and dispassionate assessment of our performance in the second leg at the military stadium in Cairo, it will not be out of place for anybody to think that the first leg was a fluke.

I must however be quick to point out that this article is not in any way meant to destruct the current coach or to advocate for a foreign coach as most people may think but to simply remind Coach Akwesi Appiah that the stakes are going to be much higher in Brazil and any display of technical bankruptcy will be a sure recipe for failure.

With the quality of players at his disposal, the unflinching support of the nation and the mouthwatering financial motivation that is being dished out to him and his boys amides wide public outcry, it’s only natural that the nations expectation will be high come next year and if Akwesi Appiah is to repeat or better still improve upon the feats achieved by his predecessors in previous world cups, then he really needs to work extra hard to put the team in proper shape for the upcoming mundial.

As it stands now, Coach Akwesi Appiah holds an impressive 66% winning percentage thus representing 14 wins in 21 official matches for the Black stars, a slightly better statistics than his former bosses, Le Roy (61%) representing 11 wins in 18 matches, Milovan (47%) representing 10 wins in 21 matches and stevanovic (52%) representing 10 wins in 19 matches. Ghanaians have entrusted explicit faith in Akwesi and we hope and pray that he will not rest over his recent success but rather work hard to improve upon it because, qualification is just a tip of the ice-berg!!!