A home win against Benin is a must

Sellas Tetteh is a man under no pressure to produce instant success with the Rwanda national senior football side, the Amavubi Stars. Even with Saturday’s 3-0 reverse against Ivory Coast (away) in the first Group H qualifier for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations, no one can start to think of pressing the panic button. Amavubi Stars fans so much well-known for being trigger-happy when it comes to pressing the panic button when the coach isn’t bringing instant success. But unlike most, if not all his predecessors, Tetteh seems to command more respect from his bosses and the Rwandan football fraternity at large, which means he can afford to lose a game, like last evening’s 3-0 defeat and still gets the benefit of doubt from most Rwandans. Yes, the Fifa U-20 World Cup winning coach is under no elusions that he must do well and well is contracted to do, so the sooner the better for both parties but most his own good. After what he has achieved with his home teams back in Ghana for club and country albeit at the junior level, Tetteh wouldn’t want to tarnish his impressive CV with a letter of dismissal for having failed to meet what is required of him as per the contract. However, drawing Ivory Coast was itself alone bad news but to face them in the first game, and away from home, made Rwanda’s start to their qualifying campaign quite a hurdle, and so it proved to be as the Elephants cruised home with first half goals from Yaya Toure, Solomon Kalou and Emmanuel Eboue. Tetteh’s youthful side must have developed goose pimples with the reality of facing some of the top players not only in Africa but in the world, and the score-line (3-0) after half an hour didn’t send good signals back at home for the visitors. At half time, many back in Rwanda feared for the worst, but it didn’t come to that. Even without Didier Drogba but coming against the Toure brothers, Yaya and Colo, both of Manchester City in England, Didier Zokora (Seville), Kalou (Chelsea), Gervinho (Lille) away from home, was always going to be a daunting test for Rwanda’s youngsters, most of whom were making their first international appearance away from home. Ivory Coast, ranked 26 in the world, are favourites to top Group H, leaving Rwanda to battle it out with Benin and Burundi for second place. The 11 group winners and three best second-placed teams will be joined by the two co-hosts Gabon and Equatorial Guinea at the finals. After the defeat on Saturday and regardless of the outcome of today’s other group match between Benin and Burundi (in Benin), Rwanda not only needs, but must win their next qualifier at home against Benin next month to even have an outside chance of finishing among the top two. Benin, ranked 61 in the world will be favourites against Burundi, who are the worst ranked team in the group at 141, and given their recent raise to become Africa’s top teams, you wouldn’t bet against them getting a result in Kigali. Rwanda is ranked 131. The West African team, like their neighbors Ivory Coast, has qualified for the last two finals. They missed the finals in Egypt, having been in Tunisia two years earlier, the year Rwanda made an historic debut (and last time) at the finals of Africa’s biggest football competition. Tetteh right on pros Only Tetteh can refuse to call Rwanda’s most experienced pros, including the previous two team captains, Olivier Karekezi and Hamad Ndikumana (Katauti) and few fans call for him to be sacked because “he doesn’t know what he’s doing”. The Ghanaian has many observers and fans’ support to snub the old guards and instead put faith in the locally-based young players. Whether he wins with his current young team remains the big question, especially given the resources he’s working with, but in terms of what’s best for Rwanda in the future, he’s taken the right route. Actually, following Saturday’s game, both Aboubakar Saddou and Loui Aniwete may have played their last game (at least in the starting team) because they proved that being a pro doesn’t make you a better player than the home-based as Ismail Nshutinamagara and Jamal Mwiseneze, both of whom replaced the pair justified. After conceding 3 goals with the two pros on the field, Rwanda played almost the entire second half with home-based players and man, the youngsters held their own. They did not only avoid conceding more goals but it was then that they even threatened at the other end. To me, that’s a big statement enough to justify the coach’s decision to put faith in the young home-based players, whom he monitors on a daily basis over the so-called pros, most of whom don’t even play first team football for their respective clubs. I say, keep the faith Tetteh. nku78@yahoo.com