BRAVO, SATELLITES (OCT 17, 2009)

Ghana’s Black Satellites yesterday rolled back the years of glorious moments of Ghana football after defying the odds for 120 minutes of pulsating football to become the first African country to win the World Youth championship. And history could not have been better timed than for them to win it on African soil, with Egypt playing perfect host for Andre Dede Ayew and his team-mates to rewrite the books.
It’s been long awaited and Ghana was third-time lucky. Twice the Satellites reached the summit of world youth football and failed in 1993 and 2001. However, yesterday the long wait came to an end and the Satellites finally went into orbit by defying the odds to win the FIFA Under-20 Championship 5-4 on penalties over the dreaded Brazil who denied Ghana the first taste of glory in Australia in 1993.
The invisible hand of God was at play, particularly in the tie-breaking penalty shoot-out. Ghana’s victory did not come by chance.
Throughout the tournament, Sellas Tetteh’s team showed a winning mentality to emerge group winners and conquered all they surveyed in the run up to the dream final.
At the heart of Ghana’s dominant display was Dominic Adiyiah, whose scoring prowess contributed half of Ghana’s total goal haul of 16 to finish as the tournament’s most outstanding player, as well as the top scorer, with eight goals. It was, indeed, the first time a Ghanaian player had won both the Golden Ball and the Golden Shoe awards in a single tournament, honours that propel Adiyiah into the global limelight as the world’s premier youth footballer.
Not only was revenge over Brazil a pleasant feat; yesterday’s victory was made sweeter as the Satellites displayed courage and resilience even after centre-back Daniel Addo had been shown the red card in the first half at a time when the Brazilians were dominating play — the mark of champions.
In the face of injury and uncertainty over his availability for the final, Captain Ayew showed true leadership qualities by playing through the pain barrier to lead his team-mates to victory and scoring the first penalty kick that opened the flood gates.
And when it mattered most, goalkeeper Daniel Agyei stood tall with heroic saves during regulation time and in particular in the course of the tie-breaking penalty shoot-out.
As African champions, the Satellites had the mandate to fly not only the Ghana flag but also become worthy ambassadors of African football, particularly with the continent staging the tournament, while other African representatives fell along the way.
Indeed, it was a good advertisement of African football, coming just months ahead of the first FIFA World Cup on African soil in South Africa next year.
Ghana’s success provides hope for the future of Ghana football in particular and African football in general. Over the years, the world youth championship has been the nursery ground for the world’s future superstars such as Brazil’s Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, Xavi Hernandez of Spain, Xavier Saviola of Argentina, Ghana’s Sammy Kuffour and Michael Essien, among other world greats.
In fact, the Black Stars is dominated by members of the 2001 World Youth Championship silver medal-winning team and it is most gratifying that players such as Adiyiah, Ransford Osei, Ayew, Opoku Agyemang and Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu have shown they have what it takes to be considered for the Black Stars, having shown great promise among the world’s most talented youth players.