Asamoah Gyan fell out with Blackstars fans when he famously missed a penalty kick against Uruguay in the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Gyan says the incident will haunt him for the rest of his life but it seems Ghanaians are prepared to forgive him after a painful 3:0 defeat to their Malian counterparts in an international friendly on Friday.
Asamoah Gyan and his batch took black stars with them and left us with black torch 😭😭😂😂😂💔💔#GHAMLI
— Ranking📶📍 (@Ranking_Episode) October 9, 2020
Many of the tweets about the game show that Ghanaians miss Stephen Appiah and his teammates. They loved the game, they loved their country, and they had the will to win.
It is becoming evident that the Blackstars we have today is nothing close to the one Appiah captained. That team, with the sense of duty it had, would have moved heaven and earth to win today’s match.
Why is that important?
Ghana needed the win more than Mali in this encounter even though it was quite obvious from the start that the stars lacked the charisma to win.
The Blackstars are going through a renewal phase, with Ghana’s FA doing everything possible to “bring back the love” for the game. For the most part, like today’s loss, the loss of affection was self-inflicted. The Blackstars, together with the management of the team made a number of mistakes that created the impression that they loved money more than the nation they are meant to represent.
I don’t think I have to go back to the things that happened including holding the nation hostage until $3.5m was flown to Brazil before the team played.
This was a great opportunity for the stars to win back a bit of the lost love for the team but that opportunity was missed.
