[ 2012-02-11 ]

Soccer: Two Bad Foreign Coaches
– How World Cup and African Cup dodged Ghana.

For the next two or three weeks, I shall be
bringing to my readers some serious analyses of
how our foreign coaches always mistrain and
mislead the Black Stars to the extent of depriving
them of ultimate victories that can make them grab
the World Cup or African Cup. Meanwhile, to
prepare readers' minds, I have considered it
worthwhile to initially re-publish snippets of two
old articles on former coach Milovan of Serbia
which have close relevance to our present Serbian
coach Goran Stevanovic's bad coaching methods.
Coach Milovan took the Black Stars to the World
Cup and Coach Goran has led the Ghanaian team to
the ongoing African Cup tournament which ends
tomorrow, with Cote d'Ivoire and Zambia vying for
the Golden Cup. Now read on. Coach Milovan appears
not to perceive who a potential striker is, and
who is not, and he appears either lazy or unable
to train strikers so to sharpen their skills for
netting goals. His infatuation with Asamoah Gyan
as a striker has been criticised, yet he
recalcitrantly
http://www.google.com.gh/search?hl=en&sa=X&ei=2iw1T6qyCtCk-gacvv3zAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CBUQvwUoAA&q=recalcitrantly&spell=1&biw=1440&bih=680
chooses him to be the one-man striker up-front.
And Asmoah Gyan continues to throw clearly winning
balls over the bar or away from the side posts.

With my experience as a coach, I see Asamoah Gyan
as a very good mid-fielder with good tackles and
good passes. But if coach Milovan prefers Asamoah
Gyan to be a striker, I have no quarrels with him.
He can do that provided he can train him to
always shoot into the net. Asamoah Gyan can be
TRAINED to be an effective striker, if his errant
shootings are stopped. And there are ways of
doing this. If Asamoah Gyan still shoots balls
over the bar or away from the goal posts, it means
Coach Milovan either doesn't know how to correct
that young man's mistakes or he feels lazy to do
so. This could be most unfortunate indeed. As I
have said, there are ways to TRAIN strikers to
score goals at the least opportunity.

Nevertheless, for lack of space, these cannot be
discussed; and even if they could, I am determined
that my articles should be devoid of consultancy
information; so these cannot be explained here.
Again, there are ways of discerning who a striker
is- anyone in the forward line who has speed in
running, and is nimble-footed etc. Fact is, any
seasoned coach can select potential strikers-
three or four- from his team and train them to
score prolifically. He needs not go to hunt
strikers in other teams and purchase them. The
other day, I heard a coach expressing his desire
to buy a striker from another team. That saddened
me indeed. This was because he can select and
train his own strikers, but it seems he doesn't
have the perception techniques nor does he know
the training methodology to select and nurture
strikers!

Mathew Amoah is clearly a good striker, but his
ball anticipation and reception of passes need to
be corrected. However, it's rather unfortunate
that whenever Amoah is fielded as a striker, he is
not given good passes, or very few passes are
directed at him when the defence is closely
marking him. It's the error of the mid-field
players to give wrong passes which Milovan must
quickly correct. A few weeks ago, I wrote that
Quincy Abeyie is a potential striker, and he needs
to be trained as a good striker, but it seems my
dear coach Milovan hasn't read what I wrote, or is
ignoring that piece of advice. In fact, both
Quincy Abeyie and his colleague, Haminu Dramani
can be trained as very reliable strikers. It's
therefore most unfortunate that Haminu Dramani was
not included in the 23-man Black Stars squad. Was
he terribly sick? If not, then the coach and his
technical men must be rebuked for excluding such
an invaluable player. So was Laryea Kinston,
whose crossings are always very effective.
Excluding these two very good utility players and
rather including two doubtful players for
prestigious reasons should be condemned!

The question of Milovan's on-the-field formation
of 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 is something that beats the mind.
I wonder why coach Milovan is always preoccupied
with defensive build-up at the expense of putting
up goal-scoring framework. Of course, both are
very necessary and must receive the coach's equal
attention. As a matter of fact, modern-day work
study of on-the-field formation of players
disrecommends the 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 and 3 - 2 - 3 - 2
arrangements, describing them as ineffective
line-ups for goal-scoring victories. Coach
Milovan should stop using one or two strikers up
front. That indeed is a 'colo' method (which is
out-of-use). If he insists on using it, then I am
afraid Ghana may not go to the quarter-finals. In
my opinion, the goal-scoring cut of 3 - 3 - 4 or
at least, 3 - 4 - 3, providing four or three
strikers in the forward line will stand us in good
stead. Will somebody relay this message to coach
Milovan? GFA, send this message to his
attention.

Ghanaian Head Coach
Another concern expressed by several soccer
observers in Ghana is GFA's preoccupation with
foreign coaches- the appointment of white coaches
from Europe to come to coach our Black Stars for
African Cup and World Cup matches. This is a big
shame to Ghana, and a huge disgrace to our
Ghanaian coaches who also know how to coach. From
the exit of white coach de Roi, one expected the
Ghana Football Association (GFA) to think hard of
our finances and our available highly-rated
coaching expertise and thus appoint a Ghanaian to
coach our Black Stars for the World Cup and the
African Cup matches, yet this expectation never
became materialised. A white coach from Serbia by
name Milovan Rajevac, briefly called coach 'Milo'
(don't mistake that for the Milo beverage we
drink) was appointed as the Black Stars head
coach.

The appointment of coach Milo was really very
insulting to the integrity and coaching ability
and expertise of our good Ghanaian coaches! GFA,
tell us Ghanaians whether our coaches are mere
simpletons and blockheads who don't know how to
train the Black Stars to win diadems in the
African Cup and World Cup? Can GFA give any
well-rationalized logic that can convince us that
foreign coaches are better than Ghanaian coaches?
GFA President Nyantakyi, come out over this, I
dare you. Why this extreme preferences for white
coaches? Are your own Ghanaian coaches deadwoods
who can't deliver? If no, why can't GFA choose
one to be the head coach? I hope GFA will react -
and react convincingly -to explain its disgusting
preferences for white coaches, when several
Ghanaian coaches with high-level expertise are
available.

As if the engagement for coach Milo for the World
Cup was not enough a treat for him, the Public
Relations Officer of GFA, Randy Abbey, hinted the
other day that GFA was making plans to RE-ENGAGE
coach Milo when his present contract ends in
August this year! Good God! What the hell of
excruciating insults was Randy uttering to
Ghanaian coaches and soccer analysts and
observers? Let me tell GFA that as one-time
footballer and coach myself -and I have said this
several times in this column - I know very well
that our Ghanaian coaches are good and some of
them have the high-grade proficiency to qualify
them to steer the affairs of a head coach. Isn't
Coach Sellas Tetteh a Ghanaian? Wasn't he able to
lead the Under-20s to bring home the World Cup
diadem?

As a matter of truth, all the three times that
Ghana has brought home the African Nations Cup
were periods when a Ghanaian was a coach! No
white coach has been able to lead Ghana to clutch
home the African Nations Cup or World Cup. I am
glad that the one-time prolific sports writer,
Oheneba Charles, who became the Sports Editor of
the Ghanaian Times in the mid-70s when I was a
Research Writer there, is a member of GFA and can
brief Nyantakyi and others about those Ghanaian
coaches whose exquisite training techniques
brought the African Cup to Ghana three good times!
So, our Ghanaian coaches really stand the better
chances of bringing diadems to Ghana instead of
foreign coaches. After all, has any foreign coach
brought any African or World Cup to Ghana? Not
even a single white coach! It is therefore an
irony of history for GFA to continue to preoccupy
itself with white-man-coach thinking, a sort of
mentality that brings us nothing. Was coach Milo
contracted to lead the Black Stars to bring home
the World Cup or merely to help Ghana reach a
respectable position in the tournament? If the
latter position was even a part and parcel of the
contract, then it was an absolutely inane and
paradoxically frivolous deal.

But if coach Milo was engaged to lead the Black
Stars to bring home the World Cup, then he failed
in his undertaking and must be given the sack.
The logic here is that he couldn't fulfill his
contract, and thus it is absolutely ironical and
naïve for GFA to indulge in such a ridiculously
frivolous deal which perhaps pinpointed the desire
to reach a respectable position but not to bring
the cup! Fact is that in legal considerations,
coach Milo failed in accomplishing his contractual
obligation, and so he cannot be given another
similar contract. He must be given a thank-you
handshake and told to go. That's all.

Source - Daily Guide

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