What is beautiful football?

Coach Maxwell Konadu in a chat with Yahaya Mohammed

This is a joke. A complete joke yet it is an issue that intrigues me. That a team must play beautifully? To entertain spectators? And lose in the end? Is that what we seek in football? Has that ever been the ultimate goal in football? At times some people make certain demands of football teams – I mean of coaches and their players and you are forced to ask whether those people have any feeling at all for coaches and players?

The home-based Black Stats cruised into the semi-finals of the 2014 CHAN tournament on Sunday evening after they beat the Democratic Republic of Congo 1-0 at the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein, courtesy a neatly taken penalty kick by defender Kwabena Adusei. Moments after the game, Twitter and Facebook commentaries painted a gloomy picture relative to the team’s performance. They were poor is the best way I can summarise the comments I read.

"The team is just poor" one post read. "Dry performance; how did this Ghana team get to South Africa"? asked another post whose writer proceeded to argue that, the "abysmal, unimpressive outing" by the Ghana team against the DR Congo was indicative of how bad the Ghana Premier League is and why he, for example, wouldn't waste time and energy to watch it.

Talk is cheap and within that context, I am of the view that, social media somehow gives people the platform to pour their cheap talk on the whole populace. If not, why would somebody who wouldn't waste time and energy to watch our domestic league, in the first place seek to comment on the output of players from the league he wouldn't watch?

Is it that this person just want to be heard? I have held that most Ghanaians in the exercise of free expression at times talk without circumspection for reasons I am not sure of. If you have nothing to say, you just have to be quiet. Nobody gets killed for being quiet in this circumstance.

Ghana's CHAN team, like any of the 15 teams that came to the competition came with a purpose. A purpose not to entertain fans just like that but to win the competition and to win the competition, all a team needs to do is to win and ensure progress at every stage.

South Africa, after their 3-1 win over Mozambique were tipped to win the tourney. When Nigeria slipped to Mali, the pundits argued that, Nigeria could head back home early. Ghana was accorded great respect prior to our first game. Not surprisingly, after our 1-0 win over Congo, that respect was significantly lost. Many wondered if Ghana was serious at all!

My point is the pundits’ views have proven to be unreliable.  To the Ghana critics, our team has still not excelled in South Africa. Question: So which country has excelled? What is the status of that country compared to that of Ghana at the moment? It seems some of us talk so much that we sadly forget about the true nature of football. The illogicality of football means that, usually, teams will not exhibit their best performance at tournaments and for me, so long as a team progresses at a tournament, whether or not that team plays beautifully matters not.

Beautiful football is immaterial when a win is the ultimate. It means nothing. It doesn't come to my mind when a team's progress is unmistakably evident; when that team’s players are consistently showing unyielding character and are also determined to win the ultimate. I don't expect everybody to think the way I do but as a nation, shouldn’t we give our CHAN team in South Africa unflinching support; support that is devoid of deriding remarks?

Prior to the Ghana-Congo DR game, I interviewed Richard Mpong, Seidu Bancey, Abeiku Ainooson and captain, Jordan Opoku. They spoke at length but one thing was clear. That they knew what they were about. They understood that they needed to work hard because the competition had been tough and only a reinforced, tougher approach would bring success.

"Progression in the knockout stage is vital", said Seidu Bancey. Whereas Mpong talked of how they had resolved to prove critics wrong, Ainooson insisted on why victory mattered most. Jordan, looking into the crystal ball, predicted that there were difficult games ahead. The DR Congo game was one. Needless to add, the date with Nigeria on Wednesday evening will be another.

Our team is in last four of the competition. The best we can give them is absolute support. We should encourage them instead of developing that skeptical, if not cynical attitude towards them. As I conclude, the questions I asked are: has Ghana played beautiful football at any recent competition? What has the Black Stars won in the last 30 years with or without beautiful football?

The harsh comments on CHAN team's output give me the impression as if there is a typical, extraordinary performance, which Ghana is noted for and which is totally missing in South Africa. We should be sincere in our anlysis of Coach Maxwell Konadu and his players and acknowledge their good efforts because beautiful or no beautiful football, what counts eventually is victory and progress.

If the team is giving us that, where’s the basis for the unkind, almost derisive criticism? Let's to appreciate the team's good efforts irrespective of their weaknesses. The CHAN team is giving a good account of themselves in South Africa. They just need our support.