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Coach Smith savours victory with caution
By: David Kyei
Posted: 16th June 2008
For being the first club to have blemished Kotoko’s beautiful run in the 2007/2008 Onetouch premier league, Ashgold S.C was not only paid back last Sunday with a 100% interest on their lone goal victory over Kotoko, they were also taken through delightful football lessons at the Baba Yara stadium in Kumasi.
Buoyed on by instruction from Assistant Coach Johnson Smith, who has fitted in so well after his boss Bashir Hayford was excused from duty, the players made sure they covered every blade of grass to completely overwhelm their opponents who until last Sunday had been holding the bragging rights as the team that put the breaks on Kotoko.
After the match it was all a matter of soberness though the players took time to sing and pray to thank God for the victory.
When reached for explanation as to why he and his charges were not enjoying the victory with the characteristic shouts of praise and noise making in the dressing room especially after tough matches, Coach Smith, surprisingly had a different view and attitude for the match with a plausible reason.
“After we lost the first leg against Ashgold at Berekum, we told the whole nation that the pitch was bad and that it made ball control difficult. We were branded all sorts of names for the defeat by our opponents until we beat them here in Kumasi in the SWAG cup finale”.
“As though that was not enough, they went on with several excuses to justify why they lost the SWAG cup match. We therefore saw the second leg match of the league as a good opportunity to re-affirm our superiority over them”.
“By the grace of God, we have a better team and stronger players so I knew and still know that we can and will beat them anytime”.
“Though I am happy with the performance of my boys and the fact that we have once again beaten Ashgold as I knew we were going to do, I don’t think this victory alone calls for any wild jubilation, especially when we have some more matches to play”.
Having lost and drawn against RTU and Hasaacas respectively, many fans had become disgruntled and could be partly be attributed for the low patronage of the match.
However, Coach Smith says it will do fans a lot of good if they will forget about the slips in the past and concentrate on the way forward.
According to him, the match against Hasaacas was his first full away match and so he needed to juggle his cards to get a firm hold on the team.
“As I promised we did a lot of work on the shortfalls that enabled Hasaacas to equalize. In addition to that, we have also started a program that gives us the chance to create more scoring chances”.
“I know fans would be worried that we were able to utilize only a few of the chances we created in the match, but my joy with the whole match is that, we are getting it right in the creation of scoring chances”.
“I want to assure them once again that we will get the art of scoring right by our next match,” was Coach Smith’s answer to the question whether he was not worried with the way his players squandered many goal scoring opportunities.
Of the matches he has fully handled, he has been making some fantastic substitutions to the admiration of fans. This he says has been his trump card and he does it differently too.
“If you observe my style, you would find me always bringing on an intelligent ball juggler and a speedster when the second half is about a quarter way through. That brings so much pressure on opponents who will rather choose to defend their goal area from conceding more goals”.
“In that way, pressure eases on us and we are able to consolidate our fortunes in terms of the goals scored”.
He described the response of his players to the training regimen as a good one and was particularly happy with the way things were going.
“The players have been responding well to training and I am happy that they have also been putting the techniques we have been learning at training into use during matches. What is left is for us to perfect them and use it as our brand of football”.
On the upcoming matches, Coach Smith says there are not going to be easy matches looking at the teams Kotoko would be playing against.
“The matches left for Kotoko are not as easy and simple as people have been thinking. We should not forget that all the matches left are against relegation threatened clubs who are doing all they could to survive”.
“We therefore have to be careful not to be complacent in our approach to the remaining matches because the relegation threatened clubs can also be party spoilers if they are not handled well,” he concluded.
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