Ben Koufie Challenges Coaches

Koufie (L) Afriyie and Awua-Nyamekye, ex GFA chairman on the high table INSET: Some of the coaches at the seminar

  Seasoned trainer Ben Koufi has challenged coaches of the various national teams to upgrade themselves in terms of their knowledge of Information Communication Technology (ICT).

The veteran coach commended those who have already embraced the new trend and encouraged those lagging behind to get along.

He revealed that coaches who are computer literate are better informed with tactics and they make better analyses than those belonging to the ‘old school’.

Uncle Ben, as he is affectionately called, cited a coaches’ seminar he attended in South Africa where participants presented their reports with their ipads as a classical example.

In his opening address at the maiden coordinated course for national team coaches at the Ghanaman Soccer Centre for Excellence (GSCE) in Prampram yesterday he said, ‘This is the beginning of many of such courses. We are not teaching anything new, all we want to put across is a synchronization of tactics which we want to run through all the national teams and later extend to the clubs.

‘There should be some semblance at all the levels. Systems are systems all over; we want to synchronize our tactics based on principles of defensive and attacking play.

‘Coaches who are computer literates do better analyses – that is not to say our coaches are not computer literates. The majority are; and I am encouraging those who are not to catch up, we must be abreast with the times,’ he added.

In a speech read for him by Emergency Committee Member of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) George Afriyie, the GFA president Kwesi Nyantakyi said, ‘Ghanaian players by their very nature express themselves better when allowed to bring out their naturally gifted ingenuity on the ball.

‘It is therefore heart-warming and prudent to go back to the basics and develop our own system and pattern of play with emphasis on developing this system of play progressively at all levels.

‘We need to take a cue from the Spanish Federation to brand our style of play.

‘Managers like you must have qualities like integrity, judgment, courage, motivation and self-confidence to succeed,’ he added.

The three-day seminar is aimed at developing a national training grid with identical philosophies, methodology and application, culminating in all national teams playing an identical brand of football emanating from ‘the Principles of Defensive and Attacking Play’.

From Kofi Owusu Aduonum, Prampram