Black Stars renegade look up to new coach

The Slovenia match and its attendant news coverage may be over but the hope of a new era for the Black Stars is about breaking on the horizon.

Most of the Black Stars players who were left out of the CAN 2002 tournament because they were alleged to be over the hill are hoping against hope that the new coach Milan Zivadinovic will give them some form of an elixir to relaunch their international careers.

The players spread over some of the rather less fancied leagues in Europe say they are in tip top condition and do not consider themselves as spent forces or old horses. But in the midst of the renegade, there are some whose performances in the leagues of Europe bespeak football virility.

Augustine Arhinful of Turkish club Ankaragucu scored 19 goals in the Turkish league and finished second in the Turkish goal king chart. Arhinful suddenly has become the heartthrob of Ankaragucu fans but he is very distant from that status in Ghana.

A blanket rejection of Turkey based players for the 2002 league in Ghana affected the prospects of the player but Arhinful says he was not the least perturbed by the decision. He thought it was fair that the authorities wanted to try out some of the younger ones during CAN 2002 but now finds the turn around of the FA inviting some of the older players as repulsive.

Arhinful told Business and Financial Times Sports that he has not resigned from international football at country level and any invitation to the Stars camp would be treated with a lot of positive attention. Arhinful’s stand echoes many forgotten Black Stars players and they seem to have a special thing for Turkey.

Kwame Ayew, Yaw Preko, Emmanuel Tetteh and Sam Johnson are all players who have played for the national team on one occasion or the other but have now been chirped away from the team.

Meanwhile, in spite of the tag of indiscipline on Bayern Munich star, Samuel Osei Kuffour, he will be one of the first renegades that Yugoslav coach, Zivadinovic will invite when he assumes office.

According to the B&FTS, two factors account for this latest development. “First because the wedge between the Ghana Football Association and the player has weakened a bit after the alleged robbery at African Footballer of the Year Awards in South Africa united Ben Koufie and the Bayern star in grief.

In principle, the FA’s stand on Kuffour as an indiscipline player has waned a bit and would therefore be more receptive to a Kuffour invitation to the Stars though not without reservations.

The second reason why Kuffour would be part of Zivadinovic’s campaign at the helm of Ghana Black Stars is because the coach will seek Ghana’s best material yet and that incontrovertibly includes Samuel Osei Kuffour. So Zivadinovic will consider Kuffour as one of his trump cards.”