The football exploits of Ghana, also known as the Black Stars, invite one to speculate on whether our given names determine our fate.
Africa’s other representatives, Algeria (the Desert Foxes), Bafana Bafana, Cameroon who, despite a sheep-like show, go under the moniker of the Indomitable Lions, Côte d’Ivoire (the Elephants) and Nigeria (the Super Eagles) boarded planes home after mostly dismal performances.
Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the Black Stars are the only team now tasked with carrying the continent’s ambitions. The name Black Stars — weighted with a metaphor that evokes Marcus Garvey’s pan-African project — soars above the din of the vuvuzela.
Black Stars is the kind of name, one imagines, that didn’t crystallise after a drunken binge at some dingy bar in downtown Accra.
As Ian Hawkey wrote in Feet of the Chameleon: The Story of African Football: “Where other national teams would call themselves after beasts, Ghana seized on a most evocative name for West Africans.”
Before a major tournament, founding president Kwame Nkrumah invariably chatted with the players representing Ghana. “You can do it,” Nkrumah would say. “What they can do, we as blacks can also do.” It’s no surprise that Ghana’s victory over Serbia was trumpeted in the media as Africa’s first win.
It’s a heavy load that Ghana — the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence — would gladly carry. After all Ghana has, since 1957, borne the responsibilities that come with being the firstborn. At this year’s tournament they have qualified for the quarterfinals and suddenly people are sitting up to take notice of their youthful team.
Playing a rather lightweight Uruguay, it’s reasonable to assume that Ghana, finalists at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, could be the first African country to reach a World Cup semifinal.
Ghana’s achievements wouldn’t surprise those who have been watching this team. This is the next logical level after their performance in Germany 2006, where they were the only African team to qualify for the second round. Their team, with an average age of 24, was the youngest in Germany.
Even though star player Michael Essien has been ruled out because of injury and star midfielder Sulley Muntari has disciplinary issues that have resulted in his coming on only for brief cameos, Ghana have been a solid team.
A lot of praise should go to Milovan Rajevac, coach since 2008, and the support he got from the Ghanaian football association. Unlike other FAs that instinctively spring to the defence of star players instead of standing by the coach, Ghana’s FA has given Rajevac a blank slate on which he has been setting down his vision for the country.
The team, which qualified for the World Cup without being defeated, includes about five players who won last year’s Under-20 World Cup. To put that in perspective, Rigobert Song, 33, was part of the Cameroonian entourage that couldn’t register a win and went back home. Given that Song’s compatriot Roger Milla played in a World Cup when he was 42, Song could well be in Brazil 2014 for his fifth World Cup appearance.
The experience the youthful Black Stars — the tournament’s youngest team — is gathering and will be handy when they go to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
If Song makes it to Brazil with the Cameroonian team one wonders how he would deal with the blistering pace of teams such as Germany, Chile and Ghana — among some of the most exciting teams we have seen at this year’s showpiece.
If the Cameroonian and other aged veterans make it, perhaps the name Antiquated Lions might be more apt.