We brought our future stars to a car-boot sale and rightly got nothing! Ghana’s contribution to this tournament can only be described as miserable and laughable (IF you can see the funny side).

I warned you last time that the GFA had decided to use only local boys for this tournament. I wondered why? I now believe I know why.

Remember this quote? "Something is clearly wrong here! The excuse the Ghana FA gave was that they had decided to use local boys instead. Fine! The question therefore is that why the promise to include some foreign base players? Why the sudden change of plan? Something sucks!!"

It dawned on me as Ghana's participation came to an end that our young stars had been assembled for one purpose only! They were on a commercial expedition. The main aim was not to win the tournament BUT to bargain for contracts!

We all saw the matches in which Ghana played. Ghana played football as if we had just come out of the stone-age! Nevertheless I will not be too harsh on the players for I believe they had RAW talent in them BUT for some strange reason our Technical staff seriously misused the players.

If this is what we teach our boys back home in regards to basic footballing etiquette then I am afraid the next Essien is about 100 years away. It is no wonder that only a tiny fraction make it to contract level when it comes to trials in Europe.

The sad thing is that IF the ambition of the handlers and agents was to try and flog our boys then they still made a real dogs-dinner of things. In the game against China I felt no less that 4 players should have been sent off for very NAÏVE (and I hate this word being used on Africans), and basic stupid challenges. There was no cohesion, no control nor simple pass-and-move within the team. Their whole approach was simply "too local".

Our handlers should learn one thing and that is IF the local boys are blended with their foreign based colleagues, the local boys tend to raise their game and learn quickly from the body language of the abroad based lads. This reaction in turn benefits the whole team greatly! Don’t forget that these local boys are also eager to win contracts and therefore they tend to assimilate more from the foreigners than what the coach teaches them.

At times I felt pity for the players because it was evident that the 'agents' were controlling the game and not the players. These lads were asked to do a specific job to enhance their sale and that is exactly what they did!! Kick and chase and chase again!

According to the commentator (for Eurosport) Ghana made 6 changes for the China game! He was baffled and even went on to say that he was not sure what formation Ghana was playing!! That was the extent of our shoddy participation in this tournament!!
We huffed and puffed and it was a laughable at times. There was a situation in the match against China whereby a 70% to 30% advantage ball fell to a Ghanaian defender. He had time to dummy, dribble or pass the ball to a colleague next to him BUT he elected to thump the ball as far from him as possible!!! 'Taaeem' in FANTI and 'Shi onye mli.. bei ootwa OLY' in GA. As soon as he banged the ball away the coach approved by shouting VERY GOOD!

Need I say more?

The pitch (compared to any Ghanaian pitch) was immaculate yet our boys found it difficult to trap a simple pass!! Pathetic or what?

If I was a scout for a European team, I would first most be attracted to a team that played captivating football and then start evaluating the talents from that team. What football the Ghanaians played would outrage any watching scout to the extent that he may fail to spot the RAW talent! Chance blown!

To sum it all up it seemed that the coach was out of his depth. He was clueless.

The initial decision to use only local lads backfired seriously and the chain-reaction is the early exit that has cost the team dearly. Whether you are in the 'agents' camp or the passionate Ghana Supporters camp, we have all lost out!

Well done to all who assembled and trained this bunch. By woefully failing in a tournament like this you have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are incapable of handling any team for a proper championship.

By the way please do me a favor, look at yourselves in the mirror!

More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them. - Harold J. Smith

Feedback to salim.dekowski1@btinternet.com

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.