Black Stars, the world champions that we never had

Football is sometimes fraught with mysteries and misfortunes. In the 2010 World Cup, a common octopus, Paul the Octopus was used to accurately predict outcomes of matches which brought him worldwide attention as an animal oracle.

A famous Canadian Grammy Award-winning artiste, Drake has been blamed for the misfortune of footballers, clubs and all sorts of athletes after his association with them. And this has been termed the "Drake Curse."

There are plethora of instances to support this belief: Paris Saint-Germain suffered a humiliating 5 - 1 defeat at the hands of their rivals Lille after their defender Layvin Kurzawa posed for a picture with Drake.

Sergio Aguero missed a penalty shortly after an encounter with Drake resulting in Manchester City's Champions League exit against Tottenham in the quarter-finals.

Arsenals striker, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was presented with a shirt by the famous musician at a concert in London, and not long after this, the Gunners suffered a 1 - 0 loss at home to Everton.

The story continues, England international Jadon Sancho was enjoying a stellar season in the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund, but one meeting with Drake was enough to bring him crashing back down, soon after which his team lost 5 - 0 against Bayern Munich in Der Klassiker.

Another high-profile examples of the Drake curse affecting a sportsman is the case of Conor McGregor, who was a big fan of the rapper. Drake spent time with McGregor in the lead up to a fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov. Drake's friend was beaten in round four.

The list goes on and on. Drake encountered Tennis superstar Serena Williams and she was defeated to the totally unfancied Roberta Vinci in the 2015 US Open final.

As weird as this may be, The "Drake Curse" has become a concern for football teams around the world, with Serie A outfit Roma jokingly warning their players not to go near Drake until the end of the season.

The Ghana Black Stars were at their astonishing best before the 2014 World Cup, beating the Pharaoh's of Egypt with a historic 6 - 1 score line to qualify for the World Cup as a result of the impressive work the Mahama Government did on sports.

Ghana despite exiting the Mundial at the group stage, put up a spectacular performance against Germany, the eventual winners of the 2014 World Cup to a 2-2 draw, which saw Andre Ayew and Asamoah Gyan register a goal each to cancel out Mario Gotze and Miroslav Klose goals for the Germans. The game was eventually chosen as the best game of the tournament.

Germany beat every team including Brazil, but Ghana was the only team that was able to hold Germany. Splendid! Isn't it?

As to why Ghana wasn't able to progress to the final could be one of the mysteries of football. The mystery of sabotage against the then Youth and Sport minister from his own backyard because of the fame that he would have received if Ghana had got to the final.

I wouldn't say the Drake phenomenon had any effect because none of the Black Stars players or officials came into contact with the famous artiste. However, there was a curse. The curse of lack of patriotism and disunity among the playing body beside an own goal sabotage.

President Mahama and Hon. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah did their best, but for the above-mentioned own-goal and malediction, Black Stars would have been World champions.

Anthony Obeng Afrane