There is no gainsaying the fact that the year 2008 has been quite a good year for Ghana sports, especially in soccer, boxing and table tennis among others, according to Kofi Owusu Aduonum of the Chronicle.
Below are highlights of some of the sporting activities in the year under review; FOOTBALL After many fruitless attempts to portray soccer as one of the continent’s power houses in the Africa Nations Cup (CAN) competition, the Ghana Black Stars came close, yet too far from clinching the ultimate on home soil when Ghana hosted the 26th edition of the CAN showpiece.
The Stars, after conquering Guinea, Namibia and Morocco at the Group Stage, went past their old foes Nigeria by 2-1, in a titanic quarter final clash at the Ohene Djan Stadium. The tide, however, turned against the host country when they bowed 0-1 to their Camerounian counterparts at the semi final stage.
This defeat sent the whole nation into ‘mourning’ until the Black Stars managed to salvage some pride by bouncing back in style to humiliate pre tournament favourites, Cote d’Ivoire by 4-2, to clinch bronze, a feat that had robbed them since 1992, when they finished as losing finalists in Senegal.
The technical team changed hands as French trainer Claude Le Roy and his assistant Rener, exited from the bench, giving way to Serbian Milovan Rijevac. Milo’s recruitment, however, generated public debate after a long search for Le Roy’s replacement.
The unassuming Serbian trainer has since his arrival managed to qualify the team to the last stage of the World Cup qualifiers scheduled for next year March, as well as qualify the local components of the Black Stars for the maiden edition of the Africa Nations Championship(CHAN) slated for Cote d’Ivoire, also next year.
Ghana suffered shipwreck in their penultimate World Cup qualifier in Tripoli when midfield ace, Michael Essien, had to abandon the game midway. But his par excellence performance, both in the national team and for his club side, Chelsea, as losing UEFA finalists did not go unnoticed.
The Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG) recognized his efforts and accordingly honoured him as the footballer of the year. That presented skipper Stephen Appiah an opportunity to prove a point after a long injury absence. Another disaster struck when former national goalkeeper, Ibrahim Dossey died in far away Romania.
He was involved in a car accident and fell into coma for sometime. We wish to commend the efforts of his compatriot, William Amamoo, who unsuccessfully engaged in a fund-raising activity to raise money to meet Dossey’s medical fees while he was in coma.
Coach Emmanuel Kwasi Afranie failed to qualify the U-17 side, Starlets to the Africa Youth championship to be staged in Algeria next year. However, the same cannot be said of the Sellas Tetteh led national U-20 side, the Satellites, who defied all odds to qualify for the Rwanda tournament at the expense of their Gabonese opponents. Keyed up by the qualification, the Satellites later won the WAFU championship in Nigeria some few weeks back.
On the local front, Coach Bashir Hayford guided Asante Kotoko to dethrone Hearts of Oak to win the 2006/2007 Premier league, with Kotoko’s Eric Bekoe finishing as the top scorer with 17 goals. Zaytuna United FC, Tema Real Sportive and Great Olympics were hit by relegation, making way for Sporting Mirren, Eleven Wise and Bechem Chelsea to join the elite league.
The local league had to roll off for four weeks without a sponsor until mobile telecommunication giants -GLOBACOM, emerged as the title sponsor after series of negotiations with the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to the tune of $3m per year, for five years. The second edition of the Metro TV/MTN Soccer Reality show assumed a paradigm shift in all aspects with Stephen Sowu standing tall, while Michael Gattoh followed in that order.
Source:Ghanasoccernet