Sports News of Thursday, 27 September 2018
Source: Graphic.com.gh
2018-09-27
Black Starlets coach, Karim Zito
Black Starlets coach, Karim Zito, is disappointed by the complete absence of a succession plan that allows for players of the national Under-17 side to be promoted to the next level of our national team.
According to him, the current Black Starlets team had been disbanded due to their unsuccessful attempt to pick up the sole slot for the next Africa Cup of Nation in Tanzania next year.
Coach Zito who poured out his disappointment to the Graphic Sports Online on Thursday complained about how his current team had been sent home without any plan to promote them for the Under-20 side.
“This is bad because ideally they should have been promoted to form the Black Satellite squad but all of them have been asked to go home immediately we returned from the competition”, the coach stated.
In his view, the senior national team can be formidable only if the young ones who constitute the base, are properly groomed and promoted from one level to the next. He was also unhappy about the idea of forming new juvenile teams anytime the need arose.
Currently, the team has deserted camp at Prampram and no one knows their fate while Coach Jimmy Cobblah prepares the current Under-20 side. Unfortunately, most of the current Under-20 players were drafted outside the Under-17 side that played in the World Cup in India last year under Coach Paa Kwesi Fabin.
Coach Zito said the haphazard way of doing things was causing serious problems for Coach Kwesi Appiah who finds it difficult to assemble players for the national team because he had to scout wider to search for quality players for the senior national team.
He argued that even most of the players who are often invited are without any proper data for them to be adequately monitored by the coach. He, however, advocated for managers of the national teams to institute a plan that would allow good players in the junior teams to automatically climb to the next level the national teams.