Sports Features of Friday, 10 February 2012

Source: raymond yeboah / www.sportsinghana.com

Asamoah Gyan is a threat to Black Stars unity

The most famous footballer in Ghana today is Asamoah Gyan because of his attacking and dancing instincts. The Ghanaian fans don't joke with their football results and any player who causes a loss of their cherished national team, Black Stars is regarded as a villain.

Samuel Osei Kuffour, until the 2006 FIFA World Cup, was the most liked defender to the Ghanaian populace but his infamous back pass syndrome dismantled his national team ambition a little bit. Tony Baffoe was the best player in Senegal 1992 AFCON tournament but a penalty miss in the final somehow took his famous name from the lips of many Ghanaian supporters.

Ghana like any other football nation put their heart deep in support of any of their national teams and they cherish their football so much that if ‘Woyome money scandal’ were to happen in football administration they would have forgotten it very soon.

The only player who has been given a chance on three occasions to inflict pepper on the heart of Ghanaians is no other player than Asamoah Gyan. A player who took the heart of the whole Africa in pain in the name of a penalty kick in South Africa, has been given another opportunity to hurt the heart of Ghanaians by missing once again a crucial penalty where each occasion would have won us a trophy.

l do admit to the argument that great players do miss penalty but on how many occasions? Drogba, Messi all miss a penalty but ask yourself, how many times and what amends do they carry out to account for the loss?

Ghana have never won any match Asamoah Gyan has missed a penalty in. When Drogba missed a penalty against Equatorial Guinea, he continued as a striker to score two goals and who remembered that penalty he had missed? No one.

Let me expose Asamoah Gyan here. Ghanaians need an answer as to why he gave the captain’s arm band to Anthony Annan when was substituted in the Zambia game knowing very well that Dede Ayew is number 4 in the Black Stars captainship pecking order. l am saying this because he had once given the armband to Dede in the Tunisia game where Dede even scored the winner in that match.

Asamoah Gyan is growing wings, he is now developing the spirit of envy and selfishness because you could see that gradually Dede Ayew is always hitting the headlines and he is getting all the praise ahead of his colleagues especially how he rose to the occasion to score that winner against Tunisia immediately the captain ship armband was given to him.

The era of Abedi Pele and Tony Yeboah is about to be revisited if we don't take care of the captainship issue and the GFA must sit Asamoah Gyan down to let him know that Black Stars is not for an individual player. It is a collective team so any player who performs well on the day does so for the whole team and the nation.

l entreat the FA to investigate why the armband was swapped from Dede to Annan by Asamoah Gyan.

Also our sports journalist should stop biased hyping of players. We all know Asamoah Gyan was half fit in the tournament and if not that free kick he had scored against Mali, a layman would not have recognized him in the tournament as a striker.

Kofi Asare Brako Abate was hyping the guy as though he was 200 percent fit for the Guinea encounter. l don't know but we should tell the fact when it is due. After the Zambian game, he was rated as the flop player in Black Stars setup by Goal.com with 5.5 percent.

We should not only think about our stomach and tell the truth to the players not to joke with the heart of Ghanaian supporters. Thanks.