This morning, going through my news feed on Facebook, I came across the picture of Asamoah Gyan above. It's layout and wording projected connotations of the sort, normally associated with obituaries in our dailies. It was a joke to some, but I wondered how I would have felt if I was Asamoah-Gyan or a member of Asamoah-Gyan's family. In fact it is not funny at all.
Some Ghanaians remind me of a story involving a contractor
friend of mine married to a lovely woman. When the contracts were flowing, my
friend was bringing money home, spoiling the family with gifts as well as the
essentials of life. Everything went well and his wife was the most loving of
wives. However when the contracts were scarce, the gifts dried up, the
essentials of life reduced to the barest minimum and his wife became a monster
to live with.
Instead of being supportive and
encouraging in the lean times, the wife called him all sorts of names, ranted
at the lack of his manhood for not being able to support the lifestyle that
they had become accustomed to. You can imagine what it would be like to be in
the shoes of this gentleman. Precisely when he needed encouragement and support
from those he toiled for, he was getting vehement abuse and his very self
esteem and self worth was being attacked by those he fought for. That must be how Asamoah Gyan must be feeling this morning. That must be how the Black Stars must be feeling this morning.
In drawing parallels between this analogy and real life, Ghana’s Black Stars are the contractor, and the Ghanaians, the ungrateful fair weather wife. During any campaign or tournament, when all is going well, we cheer them on. But as soon as the tables turn, our support, our love turns sour. We heap unbelievable invective on the Black Stars, precisely when they need support and encouragement the most. The invective is so venomenous that it sometimes spreads to their families. This character permeates other aspects of Ghanaian life.
Our Black Stars do all the hard
work. They train, day in and day out, for tournaments. They undergo strenuous
physical exercise to prepare their bodies and minds for tournaments. Out of
those who loudly castigate the Black Stars for losing, how many of them spend
an hour or more training physically? How many of them even sit down for a
dedicated focussed hour every day, to think or prepare for their jobs? Before
any tournament, millions of unqualified armchair coaches are already, loudly analyzing,
criticizing, chastising and dissecting the composition of the team, as well as the character and competence of various
members and aspects of our team. It is no wonder that Michael Essien and Kevin Prince
Boateng resigned from the National team to focus on their personal careers.
Sitting behind their radios or iPads this morning and listening to the abuse
being piled upon Asamoah-Gyan, they must feel finally and totally vindicated by
their decision. As I speak, a wise old man, in an "I told you so" manner, laments about the lack of strikers in the Ghanaian squad. I wonder what his comments were when Asamoah Gyan was striking consistently for Sunderland.
Asamoah-Gyan missed a penalty in
the World Cup and Ghana lost out. The vocal Ghanaian minority heaped abuse and vitriol
on the poor boy and virtually hounded him out of the country. I remember his
poor mother, so traumatised, imploring on them to lay off her son. The vitriol
was simply redirected at the poor woman. Steve Bruce, sitting across the
Mediterranean and the English Channel, saw something that Ghana refused to see.
He paid millions of dollars to bring the reviled Asamoah Gyan into Sunderland and gave him the encouragement and
support, we Ghanaians had denied him. Asamoah Gyan went on to excel for
Sunderland. And all of a sudden Ghanaians had forgotten that he was a villain
and were following Sunderland matches and cheering anytime “our boy scored”.
Like footballers, the cream of
Ghanaian expertise, talent and competence, ply their trade outside the country.
The Ghanaian system nurtures them to a point and then simply does not
recognize, reward or appreciate their talent and expertise. They are left with
no choice but to travel outside where their expertise and talents are recognized,
rewarded and appreciated. Occasionally, the homing instinct brings them home in
an effort to visit family or give back to Ghana. We Ghanaians, as a people and
as a system, from granting them visa’s, through Kotoka International Airport, out and about in town
and finally in our homes, make every effort to make their lives miserable and extract money from them until
we can take no more. And then chastise them for being too chisel or too known.
Ghanaians think God is only for Ghanaians.
We talk almost blasphemously about God being a Ghanaian. But if we go back to
the Bible, God or Allah is a God, not only for Ghana, but for all of creation. The
Zambians are as much Gods children, as we Ghanaians think we are. We will never
understand Gods ways. We will never understand why God didn’t allow us to
beat the Zambians and move on to the finals. But if I was to hazard a guess, God
knew how ungrateful and unsupportive we would be, if the Black Stars didn’t
make it to the finals. So he allowed the Zambians through.
In every cloud there is a silver
lining. A lesser person would have committed suicide if he had missed that
penalty at the World Cup. Asamoah-Gyan, instead, forged ahead in life and in his
career. He excelled at Sunderland and his bank balance is now excelling from
far away Abu Dhabi. Ghana-Zambia was only a blip in his career and in his life. He will
bounce back to move on to greater heights.
Likewise the Black Stars should and will
regroup mentally and strategically and prepare to qualify for the World Cup in
Brazil. I am sure that there are valuable lessons that they can learn from this
tournament and especially from their defeat to Zambia. This defeat should
motivate them to lift their game and to ensure that they qualify for the World
Cup in Brazil.
Hopefully on the 13th of
July, 2014, in Brazil, when Asamoah-Gyan finally lifts the World Cup for Ghana,
Ghanaians will look back on the Ghana - Zambia match and realize in retrospect,
that it was not a defeat.
It was simply a blessing in
disguise.
