Black Stars? Tweeeaaaaa!

Our national team is the soul of this country. It is bigger than the president and all cathedrals put together!The Black Stars is Ghana!"

The Black Stars were still on the pitch, licking their wounds when l received a distress message.

The sender, one of the few gentlemen l still call my friend was in a sorry state indeed. He was quite vexatious --- and if l may add --- tremulous with temper. I could tell his diastolic configuration was out of sorts.

"This team is a joke," he fumed. "What a mediocre performance. They are so overhyped, this team...and they want us to bring back the love!Tweeeaaaaa! I just can't think far, " he lamented.

A five-star angry emoji capped his evening's frustration.

Most Ghanaians felt this way after the Black Stars conspired to throw away a two-goal lead to Mozambique with only five or so minutes of playing time left.

By the time you returned from the fridge with your glass of sweet palmwine, the Black Stars had been kicked out of the tournament!

Over the years, the Black Stars have become a symbol of national calamity and pernicious embarrassment. And yet, their losing streak does not encapsulate the authentic Ghanaian spirit of resilience and versatility in any way.

Prior to the AFCON, the Black Stars were humbled by Mexico and walloped by the United States in two friendlies. Although they qualified for the AFCON, it was clear the team lacked cohesion, style, flair, character or spirit.

The Black Stars have become so brittle that even just mentioning their name breaks them into pieces. But must we have a national football team by all means, when all we get from our huge investment is one disappointment after the other?

Let's write to CAF and copy FIFA to grant us a two-year hiatus from all national football activities so we may put our house in order.

Forty years have come and gone since this team last won anything. I was a handsome teenager then, the proud owner of dark bushy hair, glowing eyes, springy steps, youthful lustre. We had no laptops, mobile phones or social media in that world.

My hair is now a desert and my two boys are both in their twenties. They have never seen the Black Stars lift a trophy!

Within this period, we have sacked every coach that has managed the Black Stars, just as we have expeditiously dispatched Chris Hughton back to London. Yet with all the sackings and re-appointments, we have made no progress.

More than ever before, our team lacks identity, mentality and versatility. Countries we used to call minnows in football now jubilate at the prospect of shooting down the Stars from the sky. Our best years are in the past, yet we have a whole state apparatus responsible for emptying our coffers diligently on the Black Stars!

The sacking of our latest coach is an old page from the GFA's book. Each time they hit the wall, they sacrifice the coach to save face. Chris Hughton wasn't employed by legion. His employers knew he had no experience in Africa yet they gave him such an important job.

Our managers underestimate the role of the Black Stars in branding Ghana, unifying this country, bringing us joy and making everyone feel Ghanaian and proud.

The national team is bigger than anyone in this country. It is bigger than the president and bigger than all cathedrals put together! The Black Stars is the soul of Ghana.The Black Stars is Ghana!

The current state of the Black Stars is a reflection of the sordid state of our national affairs. We have become experts and specialists in trial and error at every facet of our national life. We thrive on luck, and very recently on the grace of God. Incredibly however, we reject the wisdom that is contained in that grace!

But our football woes are not new. The Stars were hunted down in Cote D'ivoire by the old skeletons in their cupboard--- lack of concentration, conceitedness, weak mindedness, leaderlessness, technical bankruptcy, flip-flopping decision making.

Unfortunately, discussions about the Black Stars are always partisan, myopic, ad hoc, peripatetic, piecemeal, narrow and half-baked.

Under the circumstances, Ghanaians should make mental adjustments and lower their expectations of the Black Stars.

As long as the politicians confine our problems to coaching and ignore the impotence of their own actions and inactions, our national wait for a continental trophy would continue.