Why Coach Appiah got it wrong!

Until the friendly against The Netherlands in Rotterdam last Saturday, Coach Kwasi Appiah might have got many Ghanaians convinced that he had arrived with the World Cup-bound Ghana Black Stars.

Such was the new belief in Appiah as the first local coach to have qualified Ghana for the FIFA World Cup that the initial suggestions that a special foreign assistant be attached to him eventually paled into insignificance or receded altogether.

However, we are being forced to go into the reverse gear now in the wake of the game against the Dutch and the naming of his final 23 for the tournament subsequently. 

Forget about the 1-0 loss to the Dutch. That is not our worry, even though it appeared too elementary and disgusting the manner the Stars conceded that goal at such a high level of football.

To be brutally frank, we are aghast or horrified at the development that Coach Appiah decided not to augment his defence following the injury to Jerry Akaminko by dropping a player such as Albert Adomah, who appears to be surplus to the team’s midfield duties. 

Indeed, in the face of the unfortunate injury to Akaminko, who was expected to be one of the four central defenders to make the squad, we had expected that Adomah would have been politely excused for another central defender, perhaps Kwabena Adusei, who made the list of four players on stand-by from the provisional 30-man squad sent to FIFA, to join.

We believe it is even within the right of Ghana to make a case of a force majeure to enable Coach Appiah to go outside the final 23 to bring on someone like John Mensah, over whom there are doubts as to his fitness and form.

But take it or leave it, the joke is out there that a half-fit John Mensah is stronger than all our defenders put together. And that is to say simply that the Stars defence for this particular World Cup is weak without the likes of Mensah, John Paintsil, Isaac Vorsah, Adu Sarpei, among others.

It is our candid opinion that Coach Appiah has got it all wrong by the decision to carry along six defenders, made up of three laterals and three centrals, instead of the traditional eight of four lateral and four central defenders. 

Indeed, it is common knowledge that for a squad of 23 for a big tournament as the World Cup, the composition is often three goalkeepers, eight defenders, eight midfielders and four attackers.

There may be variations to this depending on the circumstances, which is why in this particular circumstance of our generally weak defence, coupled with the injury to Akaminko, Appiah should have been more circumspect with the way he shuffled the final team.

The argument would have been made for Jeffery Schlupp in the defence lateral to be maintained and one defence central to replace Akaminko for the Stars to have a full complement of eight for the defence set-up. But Schlupp’s would have served little or no panacea because the young talent evidently proved a flop to the disappointment of many.

So, apart from Schlupp being dropped, we can’t stop stressing that Adomah should have also been left out for an extra central defender, leaving the midfield strength at seven and still feel confident and comfortable travelling to Brazil.

About the Stars’ tactics or game plan in the match against the Robin van Persie-led Dutch, we hardly could comprehend what Coach Appiah was up to. We thought that was the occasion to play our first team from the start for us to assess them holistically in terms of their rhythm, telepathy, form and power, among others.

However, Appiah chose to start with what apparently were second string players, most of whom he changed after their non-descript show in the course of the game, while totally keeping out some of the Stars’ key players such as skipper Asamoah Gyan, Sulley Muntari, Agyemang Badu etc.

The idea that the Ghanaian coach was holding off his aces from the prying eyes of opposing teams and scouts belongs to antiquity in this modern world of information and knowledge.

We are afraid of what we have seen so far of our team going to Brazil and Coach Appiah must wake up!