• Chris Hughton

 Gone were the days when matches between Ghana’s Black Stars and Super Eagles of Nigeria were categorised as one of the biggest continental rival­ries or derbies.

The reason was known to many. They had the best teams and very good crop of individual players.

And more so, qualification to international competitions was like a birth right; maybe except Ghana that had to wait until 2006 to have a taste of the FIFA World Cup – the Germany edition.

But what is seen now of this two African nations in football is nothing to write home about. In the past where the two countries used outcomes of the other to push themselves to great­er heights, they now console each other with their results.

A fantastic example of this assertion was the match day one encounter of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifi­ers played last week.

The Super Eagles of Nige­ria had played a day ahead of Ghana and surprisingly drew 1-1 against Zimbabwe at home.

The following day when the Black Stars struggled against Madagascar in Kumasi and run away with a late goal victory, a fan stated that “We are not the only people suffering. Nigeria are also suffering.”

That is the level to which what was a beautiful rivalry has sunk to.

Such has been the ag­gravating fall of the Black Stars in world football. From a brand that easily drove thousands of fans to the sta­dium, it has become almost hell pulling a few fans to the stadium to watch the team because of the constant poor performances.

Within a very short pe­riod, several coaches have come and gone, earning very fat salaries and bonuses but with nothing to show for.

After Coach Kwesi Ap­piah failed to make a case for local coaches, Milovan Rajevac, Otto Addo and Chris Hughton have all been given the chance to build a win­some and formidable Black Stars team but to no avail.

Hughton, who is current­ly in the saddle, is already under enormous pressure following the latest round of poor showings from the Stars as the race to Canada, USA, Mexico 2026 commenc­es with two games already cleared.

By extension, the entire technical team, have not been spared the fans tirades, with many calling for an ear­ly sack to avoid the tragedy of missing out on a dream World Cup.

That would surely be ex­pected considering the huge expectation of the fans but in calling for that, it is im­portant to properly identify the problem of the team to carefully situate it.

Coaches have always suffered the anger of the fans in bad days but this gen­eration of Black Stars have brought to the fore issues about their quality.

The changes in the coaching outfits with the same result should by now inform authorities about the need to adopt a second plan- which I personally feel must be a shift from the over reliance on the foreign based players a bit to the locals.

It has become clear that the bad nature of the local facilities alone is making it difficult for these foreign le­gions to perform to the best of their abilities.

This has led to calls about their commitment and dedi­cation to the national course because fans watch them perform in the European leagues but what is seen of them with the national team comes nowhere near that of their club sides.

My position on this matter has not changed although some believe it is not feasi­ble.

In our local league, which is obviously not at its best, there are still a few good players that can perform equally well, if not better than some of those that state resources are expend­ed on but offer nothing.

One can quickly make mention of Christopher Nettey, Razak Kasim, Augus­tine Okrah, Jonathan Sowah, Nurudeen Abdulai, Isaac Mintah, Justice Blay, Dominic Nsobilah, Kelvin Osei Asibey, John Antwi, Yusif Nurudeen Mohammed, Razak Simpson and many others out there.

These are very good players that have not been given a chance at the very big stage just because they are locally based and are accused of lacking exposure.

Ghana had a very strong squad in the 1990s because there was a huge local play­er’s representation in the team and blended well with the foreign based players.

That era had the likes of Abedi Pele, Anthony Yeboah, Ali Ibrahim, Prince Opoku Polley, Edward Ansah, Isaac Asare, Kwame Ayew, Anthony Baffour and a host of others.

In the same team were the likes of Emmanuel Armah (Senegal), Emmanuel Am­piah, Frank Amankwah, Nii Darko Ankrah, Sarfo Gyamfi, Stanley Aborah, Kwesi Appah and others.

They gave the team a defensive solidity that have not been seen with the Stars in recent times.

If this was achieved in the past, why can’t it work now? What has changed?

Maybe, the time is up now for the FA and techni­cal handlers to develop a quota system for both set of players to ensure that in every assembly, local players would be allotted a certain number of slots.

The fears being expressed that this could lead to fail­ure cannot stand because even with the all foreign based, we appear to have failed already.

 By Andrew Nortey