Should we focus on winning at youth level or developing talent?

This is a rather controversial subject to treat, but I want to return to it because it has been an issue that never goes away.

It is always great to see teams winning trophies at any level in football and I will never forget that Saturday afternoon in August 1991 when Emmanuel Duah scored the goal that won Ghana the FIFA JVC Under 17 World Cup in Italy.

I also recall the disappointment two years later when the Black Starlets lost to Nigeria in the 1993 final. I also recall, with some nostalgia, the way I screamed when Abu Iddrissu scored Ghana’s second goal against Brazil in the 1995 FIFA Under 17 World Cup final.

The point I am making is that with all of that, as an individual, I always wanted to see Ghana win trophies at Under 17 and Under 20 level.

That reminds me of the bitter disappointment I felt when Brazil came from behind to beat the Black Satellites 2-1 in the FIFA World Youth Cup final in Australia in 1993.

Even when I became a journalist in 1998, it took me some years to come to the realization that as Ghanaians, we had gotten our priorities wrong in terms of developing talent for the senior national team, the Black Stars.

Maybe it was because Ghana couldn’t qualify for a senior World Cup in the nineties and so we had to be content with the younger national teams and the records are actually impressive.

The Black Starlets won 2 FIFA World Cups; were runners up twice and placed third once.

The Black Satellites reached the World Youth Final in 1993, semifinals in 1997 and the quarterfinals two years later.

The Black Meteors won Africa’s first ever Olympic football medal; winning bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and reached the quarterfinals four years later in Atlanta.

With such records, you would have expected the Black Stars to have made it to at least one World Cup in the nineties.

It took until 2006 before Ghana made her maiden appearance at a senior World Cup for men. (The Black Queens qualified for Ghana’s first women’s World Cup in 1999).

I am just asking a simple but loaded question; do we want to win at all costs at junior level, or do we want to groom talents that can one day deliver for the Black Stars?

Silly me; this is not even a question I should be asking because we all know that the former is the answer.

So let me try again with another question. Are we even doing the right things with regard to constituting national teams at junior level? Now that is a question many would struggle to answer.

Our major challenge is that we would do anything to win laurels at junior level and as a result, we are not medium to long term in our approach.

I will not make specific references to something I can easily mention, but for example, how come that Dominic Adiyiah, who helped Ghana win the 2009 World Youth Cup and not only won the golden boot, but was voted the best player in the World at youth level, has gone off the radar only SIX years down the line?

True, he was part of Ghana’s silver medal winning squad at the 2010 African Nations Cup and it was his header that resulted in the infamous Luis Suarez handball during the 2010 World Cup quarterfinal between Ghana and Uruguay.

Today, getting a club has become extremely challenging for him.

Take Lionel Messi. He was voted the best player in the world at youth level after the 2005 World Youth Cup.

The second best player at that tournament was John Obi Mikel. Both players are still active, even if Mikel these days comes off the bench.

Mikel still remains active for the Super Eagles of Nigeria.

During the 1993 FIFA Under 17 World Cup, Ghana thrashed Italy 4-0 in a Group game.

In goal for the Italian side that day was Gianluigi Buffon and the captain was Francesco Totti.

Both players were members of the same Italy team that defeated Ghana’s Black Stars 2-0 at the 2006 World Cup and went on to win the tournament itself.

Osei Kuffour is the only member of the Black Starlets team that played in that game in Germany and indeed, he did not play another game after that in the 2006 World Cup.

Buffon and Totti today captain the two top teams in Italy; Juventus and AS Roma respectively.

I remember the likes of Sebastian Barnes, Daniel Addo, Gabriel Antwi, Emmanuel Opoku, Mark Edusei, Essuman Dadzie, Kenneth Sarpong and Joseph Fameyeh; all of whom played in that 4-0 victory.

Where are they now?

Has anyone wondered why, with the exception of Stephen Appiah and perhaps Charles Allotey, no member of the victorious FIFA Under 17 World Cup winning side of 1995 lasted in the limelight beyond seven years?

Even fast forwarding to the FIFA World Youth Cup of 1999; the Spain side that eliminated Ghana in penalties in the quarterfinal and eventually went on to win the competition had a certain Iker Casillas in goal and a certain Xavi Hernandez as captain.

Both players won the 2010 World Cup for Spain. Ghana had the likes of Kofi Amoako, Issa Rahman, George Blay, Owusu Afriyie, Baffour Gyan, Laryea Kingston, Hamza Mohammed and Sammy Adjei in that team.

Where are they now and which of them, apart from Stephen Appiah, went to the 2010 World Cup?

All I am saying is that we have over focused so much at winning things at junior level that we have indulged in a lot of alleged age cheating.

We allegedly pick players in their prime and pass them off as Under 17 or Under 20 players and as a result, such players do not last very long playing for the Black Stars.

It is not a very good situation for us to have and going forward, if we are to avoid over relying on finding talent abroad, then it is important for us to do things right.

I remember a senior FA official telling me two years ago that Paa Kwesi Fabin had failed as Black Starlets head coach because the team failed to qualify for the 2013 FIFA Under 17 World Cup.

Many would remember that of all the teams in our Group at the African Under 17 Nations Cup, Ghana was the only country that had all its players certified as having the right ages after the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) tests were done.

Ghana lost 1-6 to Nigeria and suddenly all hell broke loose. It was interesting hearing people criticize the team for effectively doing the right thing.

Now, the player who scored the only goal for the Black Starlets that day, Yaw Yeboah, is not only on the books of Manchester City but was also one of the stars of the Ghana team that finished third at the just ended African Youth Soccer Championships in Senegal.

That is what we have to do.

The right things have to be done and that is why I still remain disappointed why Ghana was disqualified from playing at the 2015 African Under 17 Nations Cup because of the insistence in using Isaac Twum, who was a member of the 2013 Group.

That should be a lesson to everyone that perceived age cheating in a bid to win everything is not right.

Milovan Rajevac knew what he was doing when he promoted majority of players in the Ghana squad that won the 2009 World Youth Cup the year before into the World Cup squad the following year.

Indeed, but for injuries to Emmanuel Agyemang Badu and Opoku Agyemang, both players would have gone to South Africa.

Contrast that with that fact that Ghana had no member of the bronze medal winning squad at the 2013 World Youth Cup in Turkey at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Something is not right.

Going forward, the focus at youth level should be more of youth development rather than winning things.

Don’t get me wrong; it would have been a welcome bonus for Ghana to have won the 2015 African Youth title, but the main aim was qualifying for the World Youth Cup, and that has been achieved.

Honestly, I would not mind much if the Satellites do not win honours in New Zealand, as long as we can identify and groom players who would one day represent the Black Stars for years to come.

The Black Stars should be treated like a house built on a firm foundation, and that foundation refers to the right approach at junior level so that, as I love to say, the conveyer belt of talent into the Black Stars continues to function.

We need to undergo a paradigm shift in our way of thinking and instead of focusing on trying to win everything at junior level, the focus should be on grooming players who would one day represent Ghana at the highest level.