Transition of players from junior teams bane of Black Stars – Appiah

A former Captain of the Ghana Black Stars, Stephen Appiah, has called for better management and grooming of young players from the junior teams in the country to feed the senior national team.

In his opinion, Ghana needs to adopt a system where the Black Starlets (Under-17) can be developed to form the backbone of the next generation of the Satellites (Under-20) and continued upward to the Meteors (Under-23) and finally to settle with the Black Stars.

Some brilliant youngsters who performed excellently at the youth levels failed to get integrated into the national team later in their football careers.

The Technical Coordinator of the Black Stars believes the trend must change if Ghana is to make inroads and dominate in international football with laurels.

He told Magdalene Krampah in an exclusive interview that: “Our problem here is the transition”.

Appiah, who was capped for the Ghana national team 67 times and scored 14 goals, is of the view that: “When it comes to football, what makes a nation is the transition and I think that is what we have to tackle”.

Appiah was part of the Ghana squad which won the FIFA U-17 World Championship tournament in 1995 at age 14. The team beat Brazil in the final to lift the trophy.

According to the veteran, “We have to believe in them [youth] and slowly give them the time to fit into the national team”.

Appiah played for local team Accra Hearts of Oak and later featured for Juventus, Udinese, Parma, Brescia, Bologna and Cesena in Italy.

He also had stints with Turkish side Fenerbahçe and Vojvodina in Serbia.