SATELLITES VICTORY, SIGN OF GOOD TIMES (FEB 3)

THE 2-0 victory of the national Under 20 team, the Black Satellites, over their Camerounian counterparts in Kigali, Rwanda, last Sunday marked the return of Ghana to the summit of African youth football.
This is the third time the Black Satellites have taken the grand prize in continental football, which calls for some noise-making, since that honour had eluded the nation since 2001.
The achievement of the Black Satellites is also a welcoming pacification for the inability of the senior national team, the Black Stars, to win the Africa Cup of Nations hosted by Ghana in 2008.
And there couldn’t have been a better way of executing that task than beating a Camerounian opposition to exact a sweet revenge, albeit at the junior level, after the Indomitable Lions of Cameroun had dashed the hopes of Ghana winning the Africa Cup for the fifth time when they eliminated the Black Stars at the semi-final stage of CAN 2008.
Coming at a time when the nation is revelling in a successful and peaceful transition of political power from one elected government to another, it is expected that the achievement of the Satellites will serve as a good tonic to deepen peace and cordiality among all Ghanaians.
Football has always been a game of unity and that should reflect in our endeavours as we celebrate the national Under-20 team so that even as the nation attracts the world’s attention for its strides in democratic development, all will know that Ghana is a united nation.
With enhanced democratic credentials, earned after the maturity exhibited in the general election, the performance of the Black Satellites must herald other things to come to show to Africa and the world at large that Ghana, the Star of Africa, is ready to shine again.
Ghana is surely poised to lead Africa’s claim, not only to football glory at the FIFA World Under-20 tournament scheduled to take place in Egypt next September but also the FIFA World Cup tournament in South Africa next year.
And not only that; it is also ready to lead in the socio-economic reconstruction of the continent!
On the football front, there is no way Africa must allow these two prestigious world cups to slip through African hands on African soil. So even if all African countries should fail to shine, Ghana has an extraordinary responsibility not to.
And with our keen eyes on that responsibility, the Kigali conquest must have come in good time to boost the morale of the Black Stars to prevail against the Pharaohs of Egypt in the international friendly next week Wednesday. It also ought to go a long way to encourage the local Black Stars as they go into action later this month in the CHAN tournament in Cote d’Ivoire.
Notwithstanding the confidence that the Satellites victory in Rwanda has injected into Ghana football, it is important to acknowledge that it will take more than hard work to realise the dream of ruling the world at the Under-20 and the senior levels. Therefore, the Rwandan achievement should not give any false impression that Ghana has arrived.
Clearly, any objective football analyst will admit that although the Black Satellites were victorious in the African youth tournament, there is still some work to be done before they embark on the project of an Arabian conquest in Egypt next September.
In all these, however, the coaches and the players can only succeed if we all lend them our support and prayers.