Black Stars And The Harvest Of Draws

The Black Stars of Ghana, the senior national soccer team, is currently in Egypt, participating in the 32^nd Total AFCON tournament, in a campaign for a possible (or probable?) fifth cup win. But that MAY not be.

Having suffered a winning drought for 37 long years, the state has provided all the necessary resources and funding to break the jinx.

While the coveted trophy is worth $4.5 million dollars, sources say government is sinking $16 million for the sake of redeeming our eroding national honour.

As part of preparations for the tournament, the handlers of the team had to sacrifice captain’s band to a ‘luckier’ player; whilst for the first time in decades, the President had to fly to the team’s camp (before the commencement of the campaign) just to give the players the needed morale.

Sadly though, after playing two matches, all that the team could give us were two woeful draw games against Benin and Cameroun.

Most worrying is the way that edgy Ghanaian soccer-long fans are being perceived as ‘unpatriotic or impatient’. When the Stars drew against Benin, the general feedback from the pundits and experts was that it was normal since the team was already known to have been a ‘slow starter’ at international tournaments.

Then on Saturday, after their failure to beat the Indomitable Lions, the refrain from the same experts was that ‘oh it was better than the game against Benin’.  Interestingly, not less a soccer expert than Francis Oti-Akenteng, head of the Technical Department of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), also bought into this line of thinking.

Speaking on GTV Sports Plus with Kwabena Yeboah after the game, the coach described the game as an improvement, and called on Ghanaians to take things easy with Coach James Kwesi Appiah.

THE NEW PUBLISHER is utterly shocked that at a tournament as AFCON,  a GFA official, the caliber of Coach Oti-Akenteng, will describe one draw game as ‘an improvement’ upon an earlier drawn game.

We find it unfortunate that, at a time when Cameroonian soccer fans are lamenting over the outcome of the game, Ghanaian officials are consoling themselves for not losing.

As far as we know, in football, the only IMPROVEMENT upon a draw is a WIN and not another draw.

The paper wonders if the GFA technical boss will still call it yet another ‘improvement’, should the Black Stars, in its third game, draw against Guinea Bissau.

In the view of the paper, the only way to remain on track towards the realization of our dreams is to start winning our games. We cannot end the 37-years drought with such repeated drawn games.

The Black Stars, in its current shape and form, is simply uninspiring, and we expect the experts to call a spade a spade, and not a big spoon.  AFCON is for teams that are hungry to win their games.

No matter how passionately we console ourselves with the draw games, let us remember that, a cup half-filled with water, is equally half empty.