Black Stars Qatar 2022: A tale of hope for the future - Part 1

The story of the Ghana Black Stars performance at the ongoing Qatar 2022 world cup does not surprise many including myself but a lot on the other hand too may say they are disappointed.

Yes, I may agree with them. You only get surprised when you rest your expectation on the fact that the stars should do well as a Ghanaian or you may be a patriotic citizen to the extent that all you want is a good performance without the right environment and preparations.

As disappointed as the situation was, I am by far impressed with the performance of the Black Stars and I want to put it on record that I have seen a better Black Stars team once again. The team has shown some glimpses of those famous scintillating performances against Germany in 2014, the eventual winners of the 2014 world cup and I could also refer to that performance of the Black Stars against the Uruguayans at the 2010 world cup quarter final game.

In all the games the stars played at the Qatar world cup, the team performed creditably well both tactically and technically. We have seen the Blacks Stars show to all that they are a good team, in fact, we have a very young team and quality materials to perform well on the world stage but, it looks clear that this is not the time to see our team take on the world.

As a matter of fact, this was my expectation going into the world cup. An encouraging performance and hope for the future, an opportunity to expose our team to the world game as Black Stars so we can build a team that can give us the glory days of the Black Stars.

The patriots would ask me what informs this level of expectation for the team when everyone was hoping the stars could at least qualify for the next stage of the competition. The answer is very simple and straightforward.

We never had a Black Stars team but we could boast of quality Black stars players who individually are world-class players. In the case of the other teams like Argentina who had the core of their national team playing about 35 matches together as a team, our patient was nowhere near that number of togetherness. We were not able to put our team together for more than five games therefore we could not perform any better than we did.

We lack the very quality and confidence of what made the 2006 to 2014 era of the Black Stars. Yes, we must agree that the confidence level of the 2006 and 2010 Black Stars team was just something else.

The quality and strength of some of these players cannot be over-emphasized. We all can remember the recognition by FIFA with respect to the quality of the Black Stars midfield that was together for over four years marshaled around Essien, Muntari, Appiah, and Laryea not to talk less of the contributions of Anthony Annan, Kojo Asamoah et al. We had a Black Stars team that was confident and strong.

The big question is, did we have that confident Black Stars team going into the world cup? Your answers reflect my expectation for the team as I mentioned earlier.

We lack the needed class of players that always take up responsibilities in some particular games. In 2006 and 2010 when the team needed a shoulder, we had the men to provide it and these men are always in handy in the Black Stars.

When we needed a shoulder in 2006 in our second game Asamoah Gyan and Sulley Muntari provided it as we overcame the Czech Republic in that our second game. Stephen Appiah provided it again when we had to beat the Americans to qualify from our group to the round of 16. We never saw any shoulder when we needed it most in both our first and last games of the Qatar 2022 campaign. Our overall team quality and confidence were questionable.

Technically, tactical leadership has been a major bane for the team in the competition. If not for anything we saw a well-managed system that gave us a one-goal project noted of the Black Stars especially going into the 2010 world cup.

One could hardly see and follow the stars on the technicality of the game we played at the Qatar 2022 world cup. The truth of the matter is that we were beaten by teams who were masters of the systems we were doing with our limited preparations.

This current Black Stars squad is a team indeed for the future.