Former international midfield player for the Black Stars, Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu, has expressed his worries regarding how players are selected for Ghana’s national team.
There has been a noticeable pattern in Ghanaian football, as there is a growing reliance on players trained abroad, due to a perceived lack of high-quality players emerging from the local system to join the Black Stars.
As a result, there are only a few players in the current national team setup who have previous experience representing Ghana in junior national teams.
Agyemang-Badu, a former FIFA U-20 World Cup champion, has criticized the absence of a coherent strategy for nurturing and maintaining a competitive senior national team. He believes that there is a need for a major change in this regard.
He reflected on the time during Ben Koufie’s tenure when there was a structured five-year development plan that produced talents like Michael Essien and Sulley Muntari from the youth ranks. Agyemang-Badu himself was part of the successful U-20 team that clinched the World Cup in 2009.
“We were then integrated into the senior team to learn from the products of Koufie’s development plan. When the time came for them to retire, we were prepared to step up,” Agyemang-Badu recalled during an interview on UTV.
“However, it’s been 15 years since that U-20 triumph, and unfortunately, we haven’t seen an U-20 squad as formidable as the one from 2009. This lack of continuity in youth development is indicative of the serious issues plaguing Ghanaian football,” he concluded.
