Coach Bash dedicates victory to critics

David Kyei, Kumasi

Posted: 16th May 2008

The days leading to last Monday’s confederations cup match between Kotoko and their Nigerian counterparts were full of tension and extreme heat that forced all sectors of the fraternity to overwork themselves for victory.

However, if there was one person in the fraternity who received more than half of the heat and criticisms for perhaps the way he handled things before and even after the match, then it was no body but the head coach himself, Bashir Kwaku Hayford.

After losing by 0-2 in the first leg in Calabar, Nigeria, Bash did not have any peace until after he had scuttled the threat Dolphins posed on Kotoko. And this feat, they achieved by effectively turning the tables in their favour.

The match itself was full of action as Kotoko had to come from a own goal down in the 21^st minute to secure a last minute match winner that sent the heavily packed stadium into a wild jubilation.

To add to the drama of a tension match, the technical team had to be around the clock as Kotoko fully exhausted her allowable substation slots.  They kept changing the game plans and shuffled their cards until they hit the bull’s eye.

It was also interesting to see how for the first time in as many matches, Kotoko played a match with three different players taking up the captainship position at different times of the match.

First, it was Nana Arhin Duah; he got injured and handed the band to Francis Akwaffo as he limped off the pitch. Akwaffo took up the responsibility for a while and was also substituted. To carry on with the battle at hand, the mantle fell on the talismanic Stephen Oduro who served a little of the form that made him so thick in times past.

Speaking to Kotoko Express days after the match, Coach Bash was full of praise for his players.

“It was one match that brought the best out of the players. They were ready to literally die for the club and was therefore not a surprise to see them go the full hull even when some had received knocks and were seen limping”.

“To sum up my feeling for the performance of my players I will say they lived up to our determination to show something that has not been done or seen in Kotoko history for a long time, character”.

“The match was played some days back, but in my quit time and with my eyes closed, I still visualize the fighting spirit of my players and I am grateful to them for the way they handled things”.

Gratefulness to the players is something that he really has to do because from all intents and purposes, they spared him a tough time as rumours abounded about the intention to fire him if he had failed to deliver on the day.

“That was an unfortunate notion that people had out there, but since that was not the truth, I did not pay so much attention to it. Rather, I fully focused on the match ahead of the team and I thank God that we won the match in style,” was his response to the question if the rumours did not have any effect on him.

“If any thing at all, I will say I rather enjoyed the pressure they gave because it informed me as well as the playing body that there were a lot of people out there who was interested in whatever was going in the team in terms of our preparation. We therefore used it as a challenge for our advantage”.

The pressure, he says he enjoyed, but what of the group of critics who made life so ‘difficult’ ahead of the match?

“My brother, as a teacher and a coach, I will say that I have learnt to live with criticisms. However I will say that I abhor the situation where people take their criticisms to the extreme by insulting me and in extension my family”.

“When it happens that way, I get worried because it makes me feel that some people, who are in the minority, are not the least happy with the records I haven been achieving with the club”.

“As a matter of fact, I want to put on record that I really appreciate the critics because they tend to bring my attention to sections of my preparation that seem not to be going well”.

“I therefore think it is not out of place for me to dedicate the victory to them and urge them to continue to do what they have been doing constructively because to be successful, I need my friends, but to be very successful, I need my critics,” he said.

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