Hearts walk a tightrope ....
...12 players yellow-carded and 3 cannot play next match
ACCRA, October 31 -- A historic date beckons Ghanaian champions Accra Hearts of Oak to give an international dimension to their astonishing home image this year. But the turbulent road to December’s CAF Champions League final has come with severe headache for coach Jones Attuquayefio and his men. At this crucial verge of history, with Hearts eager to fall on all guns at full load for their greatest prize to date, circumstances and a plague of 12 yellow cards have obliged the four-time running Ghanaian champions to tread delicately.
Heart’s present tight corner is no child’s play to the extent that a referee’s decision to punish any indiscretion on the part of a Hearts player in their last qualifying match against Jeanne d’Are of Senegal could prove costly.
By the latest statistics, almost the entire starting line-up of the Ghanaian champions, with skipper Jacob Nettey the only exception, is at risk of receiving a second yellow card and thus ineligibility for one of the two final of final matches.
With 12 yellow cards already bagged by Hearts, some of the names including Amankwaa Mireku, Agyeman Duah and Stephen Tetteh, the Phobians defence is the most threatened and Attuquayefio’s biggest worry.
On his list of endangered ones include Charles Allotey, Edmund Copson, Joe Ansah, Osumanu Amadu, Emmanuel Adjogu, Osei Kuffuor, Adjah Tetteh, Ishaem Addo and Charles Taylor.
With this long list, not even the ranking of the Jeanne d’Arc match in Accra as only of academic significance can cause Hearts to drop their guards. The game’s outcome may not be of greater importance than the fact that any other yellow to any of the members of the endangered 12, could cause him the first leg of the grand final of the 12 Copson, Adjogu and Taylor are already out of November 12 match against the Senegalese, an account of each having had two yellow cards already.
In the midst of all that, Coach Jones Attuquayefio, the man from whose mind Hearts game plan would flow, remains the least alarmed.
Inspired by the financial prospects of victory that could yield $10,000 for Hearts in addition to $1,000 per goal, Jones says he has no option than to charge at Jeanne d’Arc at full strength.
Ahead of that parade of full strength, Hearts have a knock out final date against Okwawu United this weekend and that is another big occasion for the Phobians though the services of three key stars: Stephen Tetteh, Ishmael Addo and Charles Taylor to the Black Satellites who play Algeria on the same day in Accra