Stevanovic drama fades out, successor's soap opera begins

When the Ghana Football Association issued a brief statement on Monday to say they had parted company with Goran Stevanovic as Ghana coach, they merely confirmed the worst kept secret in Ghana football.

It is a drama that has run for several weeks after Ghana's failure to win the Nations Cup in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. It is a drama that many say has cost Ghana football a lot of time with the qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup due to begin in June with two games against Lesotho and Zambia.

It was also a drama that would get Ghana Football Association president Kwesi Nyantekyie deep in thought about a lot of things. Chief amongst them of course will be who takes over from Stevanovic and how to settle once and for all a compensation package for the departing Serbian.

Stevanovic was due to meet the GFA again on Friday, requested for the meeting to be brought forward to Wednesday and got on a plane and flew out of Ghana to Belgade on Monday evening. If he could barely stay here when there were no games, why would he hang around when he no longer has a job here?

He claims, we are told in a letter to Fifa penned by his lawyers, that his life was in danger and has fingered Jordan Anagbla, the GFA vice president for making veiled threats and suggesting his security could not be guaranteed. Many things have been said since the Nations Cup. If indeed Anagbla uttered those words, you can put that in the very negative category.

What it merely did was to give Stevanovic's team another opportunity to paint us out as savages in the eyes of the international community. One moment Ghanaian players use black magic to destroy each other. The next moment we are so backward as a people we cannot guarantee the safety of a coach.

And the laughable thing is that no one touched Stevanovic when emotions were running sky high after the Nations Cup. Why would anybody touch him after the pain has died down with the inevitable loss of his job?

More worrying for the GFA is what that does to their negotiations. The GFA wants to pay Stevanovic the equivalent of his three-month salary. Stevanovic wants the full amount over that period. If he gets his way that will be a cool 300,000 Euros.

Maybe Nyantekyie had that in mind when he spoke of the 'intricacies' involved in arriving at a decision over the coach' future.

He said: "The expectation was too high. When you are not involved you will not know the details and intricacies involved. We think this is the best decision we can reach under the circumstances."

Under the circumstances it was becoming difficult to see how Stevanovic could continue in his job. Make no mistake he is not the worst coach to have handled the Black Stars. His record was pretty good too. 19 games, 10 wins and two competitive losses. That would measure up anyday.

But those two competitive losses were no mere losses. You are measured as a coach by the occasions that matter, by the big moments. And when we write about Goran Stevanovic the botton line is that we will remember the fact he did not win the crucial semi-final game against Zambia at the Nations Cup. Nothing else will matter.

With that in mind any mourning will be brief. The flaws were obvious. He did little to endear himself to the nation by insisting on running the Black Stars practically from Serbia. The excuse that he was monitoring players always rung hollow with those he pulled through the squad.

And by consistinetly sticking to players for the Nations Cup who were becoming experts at bench warming and desperately out of form, he was preparing a rod for his own back.

But some sympathy is due the departing Serbian. It was not his fault that some of the players Ghana had become so heavily reliant on had fallen so drastically down the pecking order at club level. It was not his fault that the front of the players seemed so disunited contrary to the images of a prayerful, united unit we saw huddled together in the center circle before, during half-time and after each game. And you can argue that it was not his fault that Asamoah Gyan failed to hit target from the spot that could have completely changed the dynamics of that game against Zambia.

When Stevanovic stepped out of his office on Monday and saw journalists waiting to speak to him, it was obvious he was a man in pain despite the broad smile on his face.

"I asked one question if there is any chance I can stay and they answered no and I am sure we finished that frankly. I am sure that I did my job honestly with big motivation and for that I will be calm and negotiate with GFA. They are good people and I want to have a good relationship with everybody," Stevanovic told BBC Sport.

"I am surprised because I think that semi-finals is not a bad result. Everybody knows that our loss against Zambia was the first in a competitive game. I remember the Brazil game, England game and they were all very good games. In football there is a lot of stress and its unpredictable. I am more surprised, I am not disappointed. It is normal in our lives.

"I like Ghana, I like Ghanaian people. I think they showed me with a lot of love and I responded with a lot of emotions."

What became obvious after the Nations Cup was that the love was not neccesarily mutual. The weight of public opinion was heavily against a retention. And while his stock fell, that of Marcel Desailly, the ex-France captain who could have been the man in Stevanovic's situation now was rising.

Desailly has never hidden his desire to manage Ghana. After achieving everything there is to achieve as a player, the former France captain wants to make a name for himself in coach. A year ago, I was nuts for him. I am not sure anymore. It has nothing to do with the fact that he can't do it. It has everything to do with whether the circumstances are right for him.

I get the feeling the present situation requires a man who has been there and had hands on experience of managing football in this situation before. The way he opted out of the last process claiming it was dragging too makes me wonder whether he can have the patience to deal with the inevitable difficulties that comes with managing a national team in what is a highly imperfect system like Ghana's.

There are telling questions too. Would he happily give up the commitments that pays him handsomely for the Ghana job or he would be Ghana coach and still get on a plane every free weekend to be a pundit on some hot shot television show somewhere? That would be creating another side show and drama no one needs.

If there is something the events the Nations Cup taught us it is that this team needs a strong man. Someone who will just not know his football but who will be a commanding figure. It may work with Desailly but with 2014 World Cup qualifiers so close he might be too much of a risk to take.

But then again everything from now on will be a risk. There has been a bit of comic relief too. Emmanuel Afranie has had his say and pointed out that if young coaches can be put in charge with guidance from experienced ones like themselves then it can bode well for the game. Mohammed Polo threw in his usual give me the job let me do it rant. You will also read of every big name coach wanting the Ghana job in the next few weeks.

Just as the circus and needless drama series titled Goran Stevanovic ended, we seem all set for a new series 'Who Suceeds Goran Stevanovic?' Having lived through a few coaching dramas here, I can only hope the plot has World Cup qualification and the future of Ghana football as its central themes.