Give local players the chance now

 Withdrawals from national teams assignment has cast a slur on this week’s selections released by Football Associations globally.

England’s Three Lions had about six players withdrawing to take care of minor injuries suffered from the intense matches of the English Premier League (EPL), European Champions League competition and other club commitments.

Others like Belgium and Switzerland have suffered similar fate as countries prepare to honour international matches.

And Ghana’s Black Stars have not been spared in the season of withdrawals.

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) on Monday reported that many as eight players had withdrawn from the squad announced by Coach Otto Addo for a double-header against Angola and Niger.

Ahead of their first training session for the Angola and Niger games, Antoine Semenyo, Inaki Williams, Jonas Adjetey, Tariq Lamptey, Jerome Opoku, Alexander Djiku, Ibrahim Osman and Joseph Painstil all gave reasons to be excused from duty.

Inaki Williams picked up a hamstring injury on November 7 and has since not been able to train; Tariq Lamptey had a calf discomfort that got aggravated last week, and currently undergoing rehabilitation with his club; Jonas Adjetey is on his way to full recovery but had a setback in their last League game, while Jerome Opoku suffered a chronic back pain which got worse during a Super Lig game against Besiktas on Sunday.

Antoine Semenyo is nursing an injury of the patella tendon due to overload of games, Alexander Djiku suffered an aggravation of an existing hamstring that got him substituted in their last game on Sunday; Ibrahim Osman picked up a hamstring injury in his last outing for his club which got him substituted at half time with Joseph Painstil’s reason personal.

The mass withdrawals only goes to confirm calls to take a second look as the congested football fixtures European clubs and players have complained bitterly about.

Ghana has since invited six players to replace the eight that withdrawn. My disappointment, however, lies in the fact that no local player was picked among the replacement to add to the three announced in the first call up.

Asante Kotoko’s Emmanuel Antwi, Razak Simpson of Nations FC and Samartex FC’s Isaac Afful were announced in the first 23-man squad announced by Otto Addo.

That sparked excitement among followers of the local game but expected the six replacement to have at least three more of the local based professionals.

That would have increased the local representation to six and would have been in contention in getting one or two starting roles.

Otto Addo deserves commendation for extending invitations to players from the Ghana league but the time to go a step further by giving them playing chances should be now.

With a thick cloud hanging around Ghana’s qualification and hopes at an all-time low, this should be the time to put some faith in players featuring in the GPL.

Ghana should be guided by the reasons that have called for the massive withdrawals in several national teams in order to avoid such shocks in future.

Morale is low in the team over the magnitude of a task for Sudan to lose all two games and for the Stars to win all with their current form.

But those two matches remain high-profile enough for the local based players to use to justify their inclusion for places in the national team

 By Andrew Nortey