Continuity Ghana's Secret Weapon

Ghana's second successive World Cup campaign begins in just 5 days time against Serbia and they will be hoping to equal their last 16 performance of 2006. This is of course only Ghana's second appearance of all time and comes hot on the heels of an U-20 World Cup victory over Brazil and Nations Cup final appearance.



All of this recent success has left us asking why now and why Ghana? There are of course countless reasons why. Ghana has always produced talented players and more recently these players have benefited from improvements in conditions in sport and in general in Ghana. Nutrition, training techniques, sponsorship and facilities have all improved and the Black Stars are probably stronger now than they have ever been. Development for a young Ghanaian footballer is still tough but it's better.

These are broad developments into which we could go into in great depth but the one factor we have singled out that has helped the Black Stars recently is continuity. Continuity in playing staff and management.

The same core of players that led Ghana through 2006 are still there now. Essien, Muntari, Mensah, Appiah, Gyan and Paintsil have all suffered injury woes recently(most devastating for Ghana's chances this time around Essien's failure to make the tournament) but they have all been involved for the last 4 years. As well as playing their own part they have also been bringing the next generation (pictured above) through - Inkoom, Vorsah, Asamoah, Ayew and Adiyiah will all grow in stature during the World Cup.

In management, Milovan Rajevac is new since 2006 but Ghana's Coach on that occasion was also an understated Serb. There was ludicrous talk recently of Jose Mourinho having some say in Ghana's set up during this World Cup but special as Mourinho is, any role with the Black Stars on a part time basis would have been highly disruptive and quite possibly damaging. It is yet to be seen how well the new, high profile coaches of Nigeria and Ivory Coast will do in South Africa but we wouldn't mind betting that both countries would do better with a coach with years rather than weeks to prepare.

Continuity has bound the Black Stars together in recent years and should serve them well in the future as the U-20 side matures. We hope that the formula brings success and sets an example throughout African football that patience is a virtue and keeping a side together can be for the best.