The Best Solution to Our Injury Problems

For some reason, most Ghanaian Coaches turn to believe and depend on foreign based Ghanaian players to represent Ghana at the African cup of nations and World cup. Some local players are invited sometimes just to satisfy concerned Ghanaians but end up being dropped and replaced by the so called “foreign based stars”.

I want to take the opportunity to remind the GFA and Coach Milovan that almost all Ghanaian players playing in Europe were discovered by local community soccer clubs that are not popular even in Ghana. Most of these players started playing what we used to call “Sox Ball” and played barefooted until local clubs in Ghana discovered them. We cannot afford to wait for players to be discovered by local and foreign Soccer agents and begin playing in Europe before we invite them to play for the national team.

I am told the Ghana coaches spend much of their time after tournaments such as the African Cup of nations and the World Cup Watching the local Ghana league to discover new talents, but never use these players until they begin playing in Europe and other foreign countries.

If the job of the Black Stars Coach is to use foreign based players during big tournaments such as the African Nations and the World Cup then, it will be better to pay a Ghanaian local Coach same amount of money to Watch these foreign based players on TV like Coach Milovan does to pick his team for tournaments. Almost all Ghanaian coaches have used the same approach to select a team to play for the Ghana Black Stars but it did not lead to any positive result.

Ghana won the African Cup of Nations four times with local players and local Coaches. Does that ring a bell? Ghanaians are currently worried because Stephen Appiah, John Mensah, Anthony Annan, Michael Essien and Penstil are all injured. We are likely to go to Angola with almost half of the first team squad injured. What a waste of time and money. Coach Milovan spent huge sums of money visiting most of these players in Europe to watch them play, instead of spending his time in Ghana to find new talents for the black stars. I will not be surprised to hear the Coach make same old excuses if Ghana gets eliminated in the Nations Cup at Angola by blaming our exit on foreign based stars being injured.

Ghanaians should be tired of these excuses by now. Ghana is blessed with huge untapped Soccer talent. Thousands of Ghanaian youth in Ghana are waiting at their villages and towns to be discovered. It is therefore time for the GFA to redefine the job functions of Coach Milovan. My suggestion is as follows.

1. Coach Milovan should spend his time after the nations cup to travel to all ten Regions in Ghana to look for local talent.

2. Coach Milovan should launch a talent search called “Operation Justify your Inclusion”. The operation will enable any Ghanaian youth who believes he is good enough to play Soccer for Ghana to come to specified Stadium to justify his inclusion.

3. The “Operation Justify your Inclusion” programme should not be limited to only players playing in the national league; it should be open to all Ghanaians who think they are good enough to play for Ghana. 4. The operation justify your inclusion talent search should be held at each Region in Ghana. The Coach and his team of expects should spend a week in each Region for this talent search.

5. All players identified by the Coach and his team of expects should be invited to the Winneba Sports College for further training and assessment and finally selected to represent Ghana.

I have no doubt that if this programme is launched and taken seriously; the so called foreign based players will stop taking Ghana for granted. They will not hesitate to attend to a call to play for Ghana whenever they are called upon. Knowing that they could be replaced by local talent will send a serious message to them to behave. Furthermore, we will not have to worry about finding replacements for injured players. God bless mother Ghana.

Nick Amuna

nicamuna@yahoo.com

USA