Amavubi coaching job harder than many think

The search for the national team head coach has been going on for over a month now, and the subject is a hot debate on various FM radio station since Sellas Tetteh quit the job last month. Like Tetteh, many coaches have come and left without leaving success behind. Some of the coaches come with health curriculum Vitae but end up leaving unceremoniously. On Tetteh’s arrival, many wondered whether he could replicate the success he enjoyed with Ghana’s junior sides, especially the U20 team with whom he won the 2009 Fifa World Cup. A year with Amavubi Stars, he failed to achieve even the minimum target his bosses set him. His top priority was to qualify for the 2012 Nation’s Cup but he missed it. Based on a series of friendly, qualifying and competitive games, there was no improvement in the squad performance. But remember he is a world champion with Ghana, albeit at the junior level. Serbian Ratomir Djukovic left Rwanda at the end of 2004 Nations’ Cup finals tournament and took the Black Stars to 2006 World Cup in Germany. This continued failure has left an intriguing question mark to all football fans in the country. Some coaches fail not because they don’t know what they’re doing but because of poor working environment. To succeed as a national coach, you need to have hard working people around you especially the technical staff. The technical direction in football authority is supposed to oversee all football programs around the country. This provides a broad scouting strategy to the senior and junior national teams. The head coach benefits from the work done by club’s technical directors because they run and handle all technical football issues of their respective clubs. If the technical level of local clubs is good, the national team becomes strong. Clubs do contribute their best players to the national team and if the technical side from the clubs is not good enough then the national team will not have good players leading to poor performances hence non achievement. We have to admit that the quality of technical services from our clubs is still a low level. I have seen a situation where some technical directors in first division clubs resort to football boots and balls storage than supervision of training sessions. If top clubs in the country perform poorly, then the national head coach will face dilemma to select the best players to represent the country especially in the amateur leagues like ours. We need to take football as a serious issue otherwise we shall continue wasting time and resources. In a very aspect you need invention and imagination, Rwandan football need such qualities to take a step forward. There is need for hard work from clubs and people especially on youth development prospects to support the national team future programs. The nation will not produce good professionals if youth football is not standardized. The current global market for young footballers is stiff and makes sure only the best succeed. Our national team coaches partly fail due to lack of good players to choose from. This is why a man like Tetteh has had success with Ghana and no success with Rwanda. Foreign manager’s cannot develop local football and set local sporting policies. Ends