In 1992, Coach Buckhard Ziege had prepared and qualified the Black Stars team for AFCON in Senegal. Later, he was dismissed, and Otto Phister, after a successful ‘Italia 1991’, was enrolled as the head coach, with current Black Stars coach, Kwasi Appiah as captain.
At the last minute to the AFCON, Kwasi Appiah was replaced with Abedi Pele as captain because he could not communicate in French. Abedi Pele led the team to the tournament, scored the first and the only goal in our group stage opener against Zambia. At the semi-final against Nigeria, he went and spoke French to the referee, had a second yellow card and missed the final. At the end, the Black Stars lost the ultimate to Ivory Coast in the final. The glory and the fame, gone!
A year later in April 1993, was a Germany vs Ghana International friendly in Bochum, Germany. Black Stars in the team bus towards the stadium, players dressed up already, Tony Yeboah named as captain with the arms band on. Just at the entrance to the stadium, a call came that Abedi Pele had touched down at the airport so the team bus had to wait for his inclusion. Players sat in the bus and waited for close to 30minutes before the ‘Maestro’ himself arrived. He dressed up, took the captain’s armband from Tony Yeboah and wore it. The team got to pitch and again, Abedi Pele got the first and the only goal for Ghana through a Prince Polley deflection. At end, Ghana was whalloped six goals to one. The next day, the banner headline of Graphic Sports read “THE BOCHUM DISASTER”. Once again, the glory and the fame, gone!
Now in 2019, with just three weeks to AFCON, the Black Stars coach Kwasi Appiah has stripped Asamoah Gyan of his position as the regular captain, demoted/promoted him to the position of a General Captain, with Andre Dede Ayew, named as the new “regular” captain with immediate effect. Whether this is for oracles or for whatever reasons, nothing official is known now.
Are there lessons to be learnt from history? Would history repeat itself? Would there be some new tidings before us in this 2019 AFCON? Well, I leave it to you, dear reader to ponder over.
God bless our homeland Ghana🙏🏿
Oti-Asirifi Mensah ( Skyy Power FM,Takoradi)
