Ghana's Black Stars
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7th February, 2012
THE BLACK STARS SCARED US OH!
DURING Sunday's match against Tunisia, I was so scared that I spent most of the time arguing back and forth with members of an Internet forum that contains a lot of football fans.
In the course of the argumentation, we discovered that one of our most trusted football experts, who is so good that we call him “The Coach”, had suddenly vanished from the Net!
Where was he when we needed him to reassure us that the Stars' performance (or rather lack of it) was perhaps only a stratagem, well known in football, meant to put the Tunisians off their guard, and that the Stars would return to form before long? For if what they were showing us how they really played, then we had already lost CAN 2012.
One of the members of the forum, out of frustration, speculated wickedly that our “Coach” was on his knees praying. It could have been true, for many of us believe that we are the only people God put on the earth and that the Tunisians, for instance, have no God who would look after them when they were pitted against us.
This would be in spite of the fact that the Tunisians, as Muslims, probably pray three times a day and fast twice a year for weeks on end – feats we, as a nation, are nowhere near accomplishing.
Someone else suggested that our “Coach” was indisposed, rather than praying. “He was running to a cemetery last night carrying a bottle of Florida Water,” the guy wrote. “In his eagerness to reach the cemetery before midnight, he fell into a gutter and broke the bottle.
He was cut sharply on the shin by this accident and so couldn't reach the cemetery before the midnight deadline. Had he tried to invoke 'Zebus of the Kingdom of Uranus' (remember him that the late ex-Minister, Ako Adjei, was going to call to double his money for him in 1962 or thereabouts?) Yeah, it was clear that “Coach” had been going to invoke Zebus to come and assist the Black Stars.
But he couldn't meet the deadline. And if he had tried to enter the invocation process after deadline, he would have gone mad. So he'd wisely returned home. But he was lying low. That was why the Black Stars were playing so badly.”
By the way, why is Florida Water considered “holy”? I once took a boat ride on the Rhine in Germany, and saw a factory with “Florida Water” written boldly on the front. I am sure it was on the banks of the Rhine because it does use water for its products, and the Rhine has plenty of that (of course).
The trouble is that Rhine water is mud-coloured and has been probably de-silted of any holy properties it once contained by the sheer number of chemicals emptied into it. For the Germans, being the thorough people they are, would not trust the factories along the river's banks to obey the anti-pollution rules.
So they would try and rectify the damage done by pollutants as the river snaked its way through Germany. And they would do this with effluence-rectifying chemicals. Yet people believe that Florida Water produced with chemicals-rich water was second only to holy water from Jerusalem, in the spiritual-efficacy stakes.
Anyway, we couldn't be reassured by our 'Coach.' So we began to try and make sense of the ineffectiveness of the Black Stars ourselves. Never one to fear jumping into muddy waters, I opined that our strategy was wrong. “We are used to attacking. But here we are, playing Asamoah Gyan as our sole striker. Every time he gets a ball, he is surrounded by Tunisian defenders.
It is true that he is a great player, but he is getting frustrated up there all by himself. Dede Ayew should be right there with him all the time, instead of being required to run from midfield to help him out.” To my surprise, many people agreed with this analysis.
“A 4-5-1 formation doesn't make any sense,” someone supported me. At the very least, we should be playing 4-3-3. Right now, the initiative is always with the Tunisians. They can lob balls into our area and run very fast to chase them. This confuses our defenders and mid-fielders. Whereas if we attacked them more inside and/or towards their own “18”, it is they who would get in each other's way and lay themselves open to the dexterity of Dede and Agyemang-Badu, for instance.”
I must say Dede has won our hearts. Someone even suggested that we should appeal to Abedi Pele to become a bit more “rabbit-like” before old age takes away his ability to procreate. “I mean, the guy's two boys, Dede and Jordan, are both players of excellent quality. Suppose there were six of the Ayew clan on the park?”
This reminded me of a story I once heard about Bernard Shaw, the great Irish writer. He wasn't the most handsome man alive, especially in his old age, when his face looked like a white beard with a head stuck in it, instead of a head that was growing a white beard.
Well, a very beautiful actress wrote to him to suggest that they make a baby together. “Imagine a person with your brains and my beautiful body”, she wrote. Bernard Shaw wrote back to say, “That's all right, madam. But suppose the baby had your brains and my body?”
So I think we should thank Abedi for what he has done for us so far, but not put any pressure on him to over-exert himself, as regards the type of football played in bed. There is a scientific factor called “unexpected consequences” that could come into play to teach all of us a thing or two.
I mean, suppose one of the new “Ayews” turned out to possess qualities more suited to basketball than football? I can tell you that basketball stars are paid more than soccer stars, and that Abedi's genetic makeup may be aware of that fact. Suppose it is already taking steps to adapt his reproductive mechanism towards directing its efforts away from the production of football stars into a 'more lucrative' endeavour like basketball?
Yiee, when we went into extra time with the Tunisians, man's heart jumped oh! Were we going to repeat the Ghana-Uruguayan nightmare of World Cup 2010? Wasn't one Suarez 'Massacre' enough in a nation's history? Must we always have problems in our quarter-final matches?
But trust Dede Ayew. A goalkeeping error gifted Dede Ayew the 101st-minute winner, after Tunisian 'keeper, Aymen Mathlouthi, dropped a cross right into the path of Dede. We breathed a collective sigh of relief.
After Dede's goal, the Tunisians panicked. One of their players was sent off when he got a red card for elbowing, with 12 minutes of extra time left. When the final whistle came, many of us felt as if we'd run a marathon race (despite being seated in our comfortable chairs, with loads to eat and drink.)
Just one last thing to say: Ghana should not take the officiating of matches for granted. Human beings are human beings, and if a French-speaking Tunisian speaks to a French-speaking Cameroonian, it is more likely that the language used might influence the outcome of the complaint made, or the explanation given, than utterances made in a language that is foreign to the official.
Why wasn't, say, an Ethiopian (neither francophone nor anglophone) asked to officiate? Many people saw “partiality” in some of the decisions of the Cameroonian referee.
Whether they were right or not is not the issue. Perception is all that matters. Our officials should ensure that we run no risk of “perceiving wrongly”. They can do that by protesting at situations that might cause us to come by wrong “perceptions”.
Our officials should also tell our national coach that Ghanaians prefer aggressive, attacking football to passive defending and that we'd much rather perish enjoying attacking than win trophies by engaging in stodgy football that no-one can remember and cite to our children, when they grow up and we are telling them about how great the Black Stars were.
In fact, the guy should be made to sit down and watch matches in which Osei Kofi, Baba Yara, Abedi Pele, Ofei Dodoo, Aggrey-Fynn, C K Gyamfi, Mohammed Salisu, Kwame Adarkwa, Edward Acquah and other Black Star attackers too numerous to mention, took us to heaven and back – all in the space of 90 minutes.
In the course of the argumentation, we discovered that one of our most trusted football experts, who is so good that we call him “The Coach”, had suddenly vanished from the Net!
Where was he when we needed him to reassure us that the Stars' performance (or rather lack of it) was perhaps only a stratagem, well known in football, meant to put the Tunisians off their guard, and that the Stars would return to form before long? For if what they were showing us how they really played, then we had already lost CAN 2012.
One of the members of the forum, out of frustration, speculated wickedly that our “Coach” was on his knees praying. It could have been true, for many of us believe that we are the only people God put on the earth and that the Tunisians, for instance, have no God who would look after them when they were pitted against us.
This would be in spite of the fact that the Tunisians, as Muslims, probably pray three times a day and fast twice a year for weeks on end – feats we, as a nation, are nowhere near accomplishing.
Someone else suggested that our “Coach” was indisposed, rather than praying. “He was running to a cemetery last night carrying a bottle of Florida Water,” the guy wrote. “In his eagerness to reach the cemetery before midnight, he fell into a gutter and broke the bottle.
He was cut sharply on the shin by this accident and so couldn't reach the cemetery before the midnight deadline. Had he tried to invoke 'Zebus of the Kingdom of Uranus' (remember him that the late ex-Minister, Ako Adjei, was going to call to double his money for him in 1962 or thereabouts?) Yeah, it was clear that “Coach” had been going to invoke Zebus to come and assist the Black Stars.
But he couldn't meet the deadline. And if he had tried to enter the invocation process after deadline, he would have gone mad. So he'd wisely returned home. But he was lying low. That was why the Black Stars were playing so badly.”
By the way, why is Florida Water considered “holy”? I once took a boat ride on the Rhine in Germany, and saw a factory with “Florida Water” written boldly on the front. I am sure it was on the banks of the Rhine because it does use water for its products, and the Rhine has plenty of that (of course).
The trouble is that Rhine water is mud-coloured and has been probably de-silted of any holy properties it once contained by the sheer number of chemicals emptied into it. For the Germans, being the thorough people they are, would not trust the factories along the river's banks to obey the anti-pollution rules.
So they would try and rectify the damage done by pollutants as the river snaked its way through Germany. And they would do this with effluence-rectifying chemicals. Yet people believe that Florida Water produced with chemicals-rich water was second only to holy water from Jerusalem, in the spiritual-efficacy stakes.
Anyway, we couldn't be reassured by our 'Coach.' So we began to try and make sense of the ineffectiveness of the Black Stars ourselves. Never one to fear jumping into muddy waters, I opined that our strategy was wrong. “We are used to attacking. But here we are, playing Asamoah Gyan as our sole striker. Every time he gets a ball, he is surrounded by Tunisian defenders.
It is true that he is a great player, but he is getting frustrated up there all by himself. Dede Ayew should be right there with him all the time, instead of being required to run from midfield to help him out.” To my surprise, many people agreed with this analysis.
“A 4-5-1 formation doesn't make any sense,” someone supported me. At the very least, we should be playing 4-3-3. Right now, the initiative is always with the Tunisians. They can lob balls into our area and run very fast to chase them. This confuses our defenders and mid-fielders. Whereas if we attacked them more inside and/or towards their own “18”, it is they who would get in each other's way and lay themselves open to the dexterity of Dede and Agyemang-Badu, for instance.”
I must say Dede has won our hearts. Someone even suggested that we should appeal to Abedi Pele to become a bit more “rabbit-like” before old age takes away his ability to procreate. “I mean, the guy's two boys, Dede and Jordan, are both players of excellent quality. Suppose there were six of the Ayew clan on the park?”
This reminded me of a story I once heard about Bernard Shaw, the great Irish writer. He wasn't the most handsome man alive, especially in his old age, when his face looked like a white beard with a head stuck in it, instead of a head that was growing a white beard.
Well, a very beautiful actress wrote to him to suggest that they make a baby together. “Imagine a person with your brains and my beautiful body”, she wrote. Bernard Shaw wrote back to say, “That's all right, madam. But suppose the baby had your brains and my body?”
So I think we should thank Abedi for what he has done for us so far, but not put any pressure on him to over-exert himself, as regards the type of football played in bed. There is a scientific factor called “unexpected consequences” that could come into play to teach all of us a thing or two.
I mean, suppose one of the new “Ayews” turned out to possess qualities more suited to basketball than football? I can tell you that basketball stars are paid more than soccer stars, and that Abedi's genetic makeup may be aware of that fact. Suppose it is already taking steps to adapt his reproductive mechanism towards directing its efforts away from the production of football stars into a 'more lucrative' endeavour like basketball?
Yiee, when we went into extra time with the Tunisians, man's heart jumped oh! Were we going to repeat the Ghana-Uruguayan nightmare of World Cup 2010? Wasn't one Suarez 'Massacre' enough in a nation's history? Must we always have problems in our quarter-final matches?
But trust Dede Ayew. A goalkeeping error gifted Dede Ayew the 101st-minute winner, after Tunisian 'keeper, Aymen Mathlouthi, dropped a cross right into the path of Dede. We breathed a collective sigh of relief.
After Dede's goal, the Tunisians panicked. One of their players was sent off when he got a red card for elbowing, with 12 minutes of extra time left. When the final whistle came, many of us felt as if we'd run a marathon race (despite being seated in our comfortable chairs, with loads to eat and drink.)
Just one last thing to say: Ghana should not take the officiating of matches for granted. Human beings are human beings, and if a French-speaking Tunisian speaks to a French-speaking Cameroonian, it is more likely that the language used might influence the outcome of the complaint made, or the explanation given, than utterances made in a language that is foreign to the official.
Why wasn't, say, an Ethiopian (neither francophone nor anglophone) asked to officiate? Many people saw “partiality” in some of the decisions of the Cameroonian referee.
Whether they were right or not is not the issue. Perception is all that matters. Our officials should ensure that we run no risk of “perceiving wrongly”. They can do that by protesting at situations that might cause us to come by wrong “perceptions”.
Our officials should also tell our national coach that Ghanaians prefer aggressive, attacking football to passive defending and that we'd much rather perish enjoying attacking than win trophies by engaging in stodgy football that no-one can remember and cite to our children, when they grow up and we are telling them about how great the Black Stars were.
In fact, the guy should be made to sit down and watch matches in which Osei Kofi, Baba Yara, Abedi Pele, Ofei Dodoo, Aggrey-Fynn, C K Gyamfi, Mohammed Salisu, Kwame Adarkwa, Edward Acquah and other Black Star attackers too numerous to mention, took us to heaven and back – all in the space of 90 minutes.
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