Silver Is Not Gold - An Opinion On The Black Stars

Thank God for small mercies! Thank God for the Black Stars!

Last Saturday, the national soccer team, the Black Stars brought joy, immense unfathomable joy to the hearts of every Ghanaian living everywhere and all connoisseurs of the beautiful game. If you were not biased or cynical or racist, you would acknowledge that what the Black Stars managed to achieve on Saturday by coming off a defeat to mighty Italy in the World Cup and overcoming the world’s second best team, the Almighty Czech Republic, 2-0, in such a comprehensive manner has gone down as part of the history of the World Cup. It was monumental!

But that’s precisely where the catch is! We won and that’s made a lot of people gloss over what we really deserved out of that game. Ghana should have won by at least 5-0!!!! That’s our gold for the effort we put in! Our group could be determined on goals and we may live to rue the glorious chances that we blew in the game against the Czechs. But this reality will only sink in for the mass of our people if our boys are unable to bury the USA in their next game. Then and only then will our people wake up to our lost opportunities and , yes, by then, it will be too late and we will only brood over what could have been. Silver is not gold! When we deserve gold, why do we always settle for silver? It is symptomatic of life in Ghana and in Africa!!!

In Italia 90, Cameroon could have easily gone on to the semi-finals. Anyone who has watched that game will agree that they were in total control of that game until they begun to think like they were already in the semis. Two late penalties sunk them. If any African country gets two penalties in a crucial match at the World Cup, anyone who knows my office should come for a top-up of their units on their cell phones for free. It just will not happen! Again, in Japan-Korea 2002, Senegal in their minds, were already playing their final game in the quarter-finals. They were ready to accept silver instead of the deserved gold. And silver they got!!!

We as Africans have consistently been psyched to accept such rewards which notionally may seem stupendous but which actually do not reflect just reward for the inputs that we have made. So in my opinion, until someone tells our golden boys that we are not in the World Cup just to reach the second round or just to beat the Czechs, but to also compete for the ultimate prize, which is the WORLD CUP itself, we should expect a contented team back from the tournament after tomorrow’s game when we could have gone for gold.

IF WE WORKED FOR THE GOLD, LET US NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING ELSE BUT THE GOLD!!! COME ON BOYS! PUT YOUR HEART IN IT! GO TO THE LIMIT! GO FOR GOLD!!!

JOE ABOAGYE DEBRAH Esq.
Legal Practitioner, Accra

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