Arday gets the nod as head coach

Accra, Sept. 14, GNA - The Ghana Football Association (GFA) has appointed Mr Sam Arday as the head coach of the Senior National Team, the Black Stars. In statement signed by Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, Chairman of the GFA, copied to the GNA Sports, it said the appointment takes immediate effect and the coach has been charged with the responsibility of prepare the Stars for their World Cup Qualifying match against DR. Congo on October 10, in Ghana.

Coach Arday's appointment comes almost a week after the sudden departure of Portuguese coach, Mariano Jeronimo Barreto abandoned the Black Stars job to take up a new appointment with C.S. Maritimo in the Portuguese Super League. Coach Arday before his appointment was the Technical Director of Gomoa Feteh Feyenoord Soccer Academy, currently campaigning in the National Premier League. The coach whose successes in coaching gained him the Nation's "Order of the Volta Award" Civil Division in the mid 90's is well remembered for his exploits in the FIFA Under-17 Soccer Tournament in Ecuador in 1995.

Coach Arday invented the famous "Multi-System" and executed it to perfection leading to the annexation of the trophy by Ghana in 1995 for the second time. Prior to this feat, coach Arday was responsible for the success of the nation at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain when he guided the national Under-23 team, the Black Meteors to pick a bronze medal in the soccer category.

Coach Arday's achievement is unprecedented in the annals of Ghana soccer as well as the Africa continent at the Olympic level. The Coach's romance with the senior national team has however not witnessed much success after his exploits with the junior teams. He was in charge of the team when the Black Stars engaged in a nerve-racking World Cup Qualifying match against Morocco at the Kumasi Sports Stadium, a match which saw the Stars coming from behind to draw three all with the North African country in 1998.

In the same year, he assisted Dutch coach, Rinus Israel to handle the Black Stars at the Nation's Cup in Burkina Faso, which ended in a fiasco following the early exit of the team from the group stages of the competition leading to the resignation of the coaches. He has had previous contacts with local club sides such as Accra Hearts of Oak, Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Okwawu United and is on record to have chalked modest success with these clubs. Coach Arday's past experience in the game is expected to give him the needed guidance in the dispensation of his new task.

It would be recalled that his name and that of coach Sir Cecil Cecil Jones Attuquayefio came up as the possible replacements for Coach Barreto. Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe has however appealed to Ghanaians to lend the coach the needed support to discharge his functions as the new man for the Stars job.