Sports Features of Tuesday, 19 February 2013

Source: Daniel Oduro

Apology accepted but not enough

Ghana’s search for another Nations cup trophy will continue in 2015 when the next tournament comes around in Morocco. The Stars once again flattered to deceive at the just ended African cup of Nations.

How the Black Stars are yet to win the Nations cup since 1982 remains a mystery and even though there have been impressive performances at the 2006 and 2010 world cups, the latest performance by the Black Stars at the cup of Nations leaves much to be desired.

Kwesi Appiah has since accepted blame for the Black Stars poor showing and has stressed that he has learned valuable lessons from his first tournament as head coach of the team.

It is very respectful of the coach to apologies to the good people of Ghana and even though the apology is accepted, it must be stressed that it won’t be tolerated again in the future.

Kwesi Appiah has received a great deal of goodwill since his appointment as the substantive coach of the senior national team almost a year ago.

He is believed to have been allowed to be his ‘own man’ and left to independently take his own decision in the face of fears there could be interferences from some members of the GFA yet Kwesi Appiah is yet to convince the vast majority of Ghanaians that he is cut and ready for the big stage.

As Ghanaians, we all do hope that the former National star will succeed, but we will however continue to play our watchdog role and not sit unconcerned while things go wrong.

Ghana has a crucial 2014 world cup qualifier against Sudan in Kumasi on March 24 and we cannot afford to drop any points.

The Black Stars must greatly improve if they want to answer the roll call when World cup starts in Rio in 2014. Ghana cannot afford to miss out on the world cup. It has now become a must and Kwesi Appiah would not want to be the man to halt Ghana’s successive qualifications to the tournament.

Kwesi Appiah must detach his emotions from the job and allow his professionalism to come thorough as management aim at rebuilding the team.

Appiah has done a good job by introducing young players like Christian Atsu, Albert Adomah and Mubarak Wakaso into the team. They all played their part but the recently ended Afcon has shown that experience is vital to winning major tournaments.