Akonnor hoping local coach quirk brings AFCON success

Ghana coach Charles Akonnor

Tuesday Aug 24, 2021. 12:00

Ghana national team coach C.K. Akonnor has revealed that he is confident of ending the Black Stars’ long wait for another Africa Cup of Nations title.

Ghana are four-time winners of the AFCON (only Cameroon [five] and Egypt [seven] have more continental titles), but their last triumph came way back in 1982.

By the time the delayed 2021 AFCON is held in Cameroon next year, it will have been 40 years since the Black Stars were last the kings of African football.

Yet Akonnor is confident of success and has cited a quirk in Ghana’s record, which is that all of their AFCON triumphs have come with a local coach at the helm of the team.

“I want to achieve this but we all need to believe. It’s only local coaches who have won the AFCON,” Akonnor said during a zoom conference with journalists, as quoted by Yen.

He added, “I am confident it will happen with a local coach. Ghanaians must start believing us.”

Charles Gyamfi, the most iconic coach in Ghana’s history, won three Africa Cup of Nations with the Black Stars: back-to-back in 1963 and 1965, as well as in 1978. Fred Osam Doudou won Ghana’s last Africa Cup of Nations trophy in 1982.

The West African nation has been runners-up three times since: 1992, 2010 and 2015.

In the 2021 AFCON, they will come up against Morocco, Comoros and Gabon in Group C, with Akonnor ambivalent about the draw.

“I think it is okay. I didn’t come here with a lot of expectations regarding which group I want to be in. Nowadays football is football so you cannot expect anything.

“I think we had a strong friendly with Morocco a few months ago and thank God they are in our group. It gives us an idea of the opponent. I am thankful to the Ghana FA for organising the friendly.”

Ghana will also be in 2022 World Cup qualification action in the coming days, as they face Group G opponents Ethiopia in Cape Coast on September 3 and South Africa in Johannesburg on September 6.