Focus: Rwanda should emulate Ghana’s strategies

As the curtains came down on the world cup finals in South Africa, perhaps it is time to take stock as a country why we have never qualified for the most popular tournament in the world and why we have been represented in the Africa Cup of Nations only once in Rwanda’s history despite the huge amount of support provided by the head of state. Rwanda last played on the continental show-piece in 2004 and since then it has been near misses. The biggest lesson we can draw from is by emulating the example of Ghana’s Black Stars. Denied their best players mostly through injury, the Black Stars defied all odds to reach the quarterfinal of the tournament where they lost narrowly to the eventual fourth place finishers Uruguay. Ghana coach Milovan Rajavec kept faith with a mostly young Ghanian side that stepped up to replace the likes of Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien. The young side performed beyond expectations edging out a more established United States side and also Serbia with all their star names present. Those who manage our football should seriously consider a total overhaul of the current playing unit and perhaps just retain a few of the players. It is a sad fact that our coaches keep on relying on the same players who have never taken us anywhere. Some of the players have been part of the team’s campaigns for the last six years without significant success and we keep recycling them. There needs to be a total de-link with the past as we build a new team for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations to be jointly host by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and also the 2014 world cup in Brazil or else our players will continue being mere spectators of the tournaments. This will mean that we have programs that churn out players in the under-17 and under-20 categories and also enter the teams in continental tournaments at this level. Ghana had an advantage as majority of the young players who came in to replace the absent old guards had won the under-20 Africa Cup here in Kigali and the under-20 World Cup in Egypt and had the experience of playing at the top level. This is what has always been lacking and we need to start from the lower level as we seek to rebuild a new team for the future. dedantos2002@yahoo.com