Ghana in Focus - Africa Cup of Nations, matters arising

This week's Ghana in Focus is a roundup of the just ended Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) that was held in Cameroun.

The pre-tournament favourites and Africa's number one team, Senegal ended up champions of Africa by beating Egypt 4-2 on penalties to win their first ever continental title.  

Senegal showed that you don't have to have a White/European coach to attain success but rather a local coach who understands the local mentality and has the backing of their national FA who are prepared to back their man with time and resources will eventually bear fruit and Aliou Cisse's success with Senegal is proof of this.

What this year's AFCON showed us is that the so called small boys are catching up fast with the supposed big boys.  The likes of Comoros Islands, The Gambia, Malawi and Equatorial Guinea proved this by ALL progressing to the knockout stages with the Comoros Islands beating four time AFCON champions Ghana in the last group games to qualify for the knockout stages to send Ghana crashing out.

The supposed big boys namely Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria and La Cote D'Ivoire all flattered to deceive along with Egypt who stole their way to the final by playing for the  lottery of penalty shoot outs.

Finally , Ghana has a long way to go if it is to re kindle the glory days of the late 2000's to early 2010's let alone the heights Ghana scaled in the 1960's when it won back-to-back AFCON's.  One silver lining for Ghana is that it has hired the services of experienced Ghanaian coach Otto Addo whose experience with German outfit Borussia Dortmund will be very invaluable along with the English Premier League experience of Chris Hughton who was named as the Technical Director for the Black Stars.