Ghana Vs. Saudi Arabia (Pay Back or Pay Off)

The Ghana Black Stars has finally been given the opportunity to revenge on their unforgettable defeat in the hands of Saudi Arabia. In 2007, Saudi Arabia stunned Ghana with a 5-0 thrashing of the Black Stars in an international friendly. The then Asian Cup runners-up ran riot in Riyadh against one of Africa’s finest teams and inflicted Ghana’s worst defeat since their 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Germany in the early nineties.

Despite the fact that the Black Stars were missing Stephen Appiah who was then the captain of the team, the Black Stars fielded a strong side and a mistake from captain, Michael Essien, in the fifth minute allowed one of the stars of the then Asian Cup Yasser Al Qahtani to open the scoring. Saud Khariri added a second midway through the first half and Al-Qahtani made it three six minutes after the restart. From then on it was damage limitation from the stunned Black Stars but there was still time for the hosts to be awarded and scored two penalties. The first was fired home by Saad Al Harthi and the second in stoppage time from Redha Tukar to round off a sensational sweet revenge for Saudi Arabia.
Now the door is once again opened for the Stars to redeem its self and for the acting coach, Akwasi Appiah, to as well redeem himself. The 17th day of this month, November, will be the exact date for this encounter in the United Arab Emirates. Before that humiliation 5-0 defeat, the two teams met in 2005 in Jeddah with the Ghana Black Stars triumphing 3-1 over the Arabs. This is the time for the African giants to either duplicate the result from 2005 or revenge on the 5-0 trash.
The cries from the fans to offer Akwasi Appiah a second chance to restore his dignity after a home draw against Sudan last month, has been heard from the above. Therefore, their wishes have been granted! With this in mind, there should be no mistake in this match from the invitation of the players to the end of the 90 plus minutes of the game due to the fact that the national pride is at stake more than ever. The reason is the Black Stars, a 17th ranked nation in the world, playing a 71st ranked nation in the world, cannot afford to be defeated.
International friendly matches aid in preparing a team for future matches. It allows a team to realize its loop holes among its positions in order to work toward and to feel them. An example was the Black Stars friendly match against the Netherlands. Indeed the defeat was painful, it helped the Black Stars to seal its defensive defects before the World Cup tournament. The results in the WC games were the products of playing one of the toughest nations in the world.
Now my question is what is the Black Stars going to gain from this up coming friendly match? Are we going forward or backwards? Do the organizers, who contracted this match, want the Black Stars to improve or not? Was it due to lack of finance or lack of organizational planning? It is a pay back or a pay off?
Yes, there is an understanding when talking about football encounter as there is no any weak team or nation in the world. A lower ranked team could as well expose the weakness of a higher ranked team. Contrary, the fact is still there and needs to be considered. Being among the top ranked nations, a nation can’t ignore the essence of good organization because arrangements have to be made early enough to secure a higher ranked opponent in a friendly match. When an organization is late in arranging friendly matches, the nation has no choice but to settle with lower seeders.
Spain, Netherlands, Brazil, Germany and the rest are not at the top of the rankings by mouth. It takes effort to be among the best. In other words, playing a 71st ranked team whilst ranked among the top twenties wouldn’t help in any way. Even if the top ten ranking countries were booked, what happened to the next twenty countries?
Of course, the country will love sweet revenge and I’m looking forward to it. Consequently, is it going to benefit the team in anyway? That is my question!
In All things, get Understanding, get Wisdom
Ransford F. Peprah, Football Analyst (Rnsfdpeprah@yahoo.com)