What Went Wrong: Comparing Milovan Rajevac’s first spell as Black Stars coach to his second spell
The first spell
In August 2008, Milovan Rajevac was announced as the new Black Stars head coach. A role he administered for two years; a tenure which saw Ghana exhibit some of the best football the African football fraternity had ever seen.
Exploits in the summer of 2010 in South Africa till date, are one of the most talked about circumstances in world football.
Indeed at the time, Ghanaians and the members of the Black Stars team felt invincible and very bold of beating whichever mould of opposition that stood in their way.
The Serb’s return was greeted with a plethora of emotions from Ghanaians as some were pleased with the comeback with others expressing displeasure- reason being that the man abandoned the team in 2010.
Milovan’s first competitive game as Black Stars head coach was on September 5, 2008, and despite a draw with Tanzania in his first game.
Expectations were rife with Stephen Appiah making a return to the squad but all that excitement did little to prevent Ghana from falling to the Libyans in a 1-0 defeat in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers.
The Serb worked the magic as the Black Stars rallied to a 3-0 win over Lesotho, and from that moment on, it was sweet foraging for the team in that particular campaign.
The aggregate score for the Black Stars in the qualifiers after their Libya defeat was 12 – 3. Ghana averaged 1.5 goals scored in a match during the run-in to South Africa.
Despite not being in charge of Ghana’s AFCON qualifying campaign, Rajevac shouldered the hopes and dreams of the football-crazy nation.
After suffering a jittery start at the hands of Cote d’Ivoire, the Black Stars finished second in Group B with three points. It can be said mother luck was on the side of Rajevac and his team, with Togo suffering disqualification for failing to show up for their opener against Ghana.
Ironically that star-studded Black Stars team lost to Ivory Coast [playing their second game], who to be fair, also equally had a cosmic of stars as goals from Gervinho, Tiene and Drogba sunk Rajevac’s men with Asamoah Gyan scoring a consolation in the 90th minute from the penalty spot.
In the last game, Dede Andre Ayew scored the solitary goal against Burkina Faso to send the Black Stars to the knockout stage.
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Ghana then faced hosts, Angola on January 24 as a Gyan goal in the first quarter of the game sealed the deal for the West Africans.
On January 28, Milo extended Ghana’s unbeaten run versus Nigeria, with yet another Gyan goal.
But the joy of triumph over the arch-rivals was short-lived, as three days later, the hearts of Ghanaians were plunged with the fiercest of Egyptian jubilations.
Mohammed Afash [Gedo] calmly slotted the ball past Richard Kingson in the 85th minute to lift the trophy for the third time in a row (2006, 2008, 2010).
The Return
Exactly 13 years later, the Serb staged a return, at a time when the Black Stars has become nothing but a container of historical ferocity.
The campaign for a local coach to run the Black Stars succeeded, but the output of those who eventually got to bear the fruits of the labour of campaigners, did little to sustain the calls with former Black Stars captain Charles Kwabla Akunnor sacked as a result of unconvincing results.
Milo, who made his return after qualifying Ghana to the World Cup and seeing the Black Stars through till the quarter-finals, kept to his word from his unveiling and did not make wholesome changes to the squad.
Just like his first stint, the 67-year-old called up a mixture of old and new entertaining players to the squad with debutants in the list including Jojo Wallocott, a goalkeeper from English League Two’s Swindon Town.
In his first game in charge, Ghana completed the double over Zimbabwe in the World Cup qualifiers winning 3-1 at home and picking up a 1-0 win away in Harare to temporarily go top of Group G.
In what was an emotional trauma for the many Ghanaian fans, Ghana gave away the lead to Ethiopia in their penultimate game of the World Cup qualifiers with South Africa beating Zimbabwe to worsen things for the Stars.
But Ghana will finally qualify for the play offs as Dede Ayew’s penalty goal ensured the Stars picked up an all important 1-0 win over South Africa in a controversial manner.
Attention was now shifted to preparations for the 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon as Ghana was looking to end a 40 year trophy drought, last winning a trophy in 1982.
Ghana pitched camp in Doha, Qatar to spice up the team for the Africa Cup of Nations after Milovan named his 28 man squad for the Tournament.
Ghana then played Algeria in a friendly match to strengthen their team but lost woefully to the African Champions by 3-0 with a lot of exposure on Milovan’s set up for the AFCON.
Three days to the tournament in Cameroon, Black Stars flew to Yaounde to start preparations for their first game against Morocco. Things did not go as planned as Ghana lost 1-0 to the Atlas Lions and then went ahead to draw with Gabon.
Ghana could have qualified with just two points but chose to lose to Comoros and ended their chase to end a 40 year trophy drought with the Stars recording their worst performance ever at the continental showpiece.
After the AFCON exit, Milovan said in a press conference that he was not resigning anytime soon as many Ghanaians were calling for the sack of the Serb.
He then revealed that winning the AFCON was a primary task for him as his main goal was to qualify Ghana to the World Cup in Qatar.
“I will not resign, because I came to take this team to the World Cup,” the Serbian said after the game.
The gaffer also made it know that the current set up didn’t have the drive like that of his first spell between 2008 to 2010.
“It is difficult to compare situations; this team also has great talents. In the past, in 2009 and 2010, the team was in a process of making a good squad for more than 2 years and the period lasted for more than 2 years. We played in the CHAN final with the Local Black Stars, and also the final of the AFCON so it takes time to establish a team to set up all pieces of the puzzle together. Today, time is hard to come by, we don’t have friendly matches anymore, we played four competitive matches – within two months – two in October and two in November.
We planned to have three friendly matches within the preparation period, we could only play only one and without all the players at our disposal so these are the circumstances, it’s not an excuse, these are different times because of COVID-19 and everything associated with it. To establish a team and to set all the pieces together to complete the puzzle, it takes some time together but we are growing and I strong believe this team the quality and has the potential to show everybody in the future and hopefully very soon,” he said.
Milovan’s One-goal project
During the first spell of Rajevac, Ghanaians were not spoiled with goals, however they were treated with the mastery, and nerves of defending leads. In 28 games, there was an average of 0.8 goals scored a game; victories with one-nil score lines were bread and butter.
6 out of Milo’s 12 wins for Ghana ended 1-0, with one other game ending with a one-goal difference (2-1 v USA). On three occasions, the Black Stars managed to score two goals without reply, while just 10.7% of their games produced three or more goals.
Out of those six 1-0 victories, 33.3% of the goals came in the dying minutes of the game. Meaning, the Black Stars for 66.6% of those games, had to defend goals which sometimes came as early as in the first minute.
The case of one-goal projects was not different when the Black Stars were on the losing side.
Besides suffering a 4-1 defeat to Netherlands, a 2-0 defeat to Argentina and losing on penalties to Uruguay, all other nine defeats of the Black Stars were with 1-0 score lines or a difference of one goal.
In his two year stay, he played competitive games in the World Cup qualifiers, AFCON qualifiers, World Cup and AFCON, losing just six games in the process.
The second spell did not really see the ‘one goal project’ as Milovan started off with a 3-1 win over Zimbabwe.
The Stars then went to default settings as they beat Zimbabwe 1-0 in the return leg.
Ghana once again won their last group game against South Africa courtesy a goal by Dede Ayew.
The biggest defeat of Milovan’s second coming will be the 3-2 loss to 132nd placed Comoros at the Africa Cup of Nations.
In all, Ghana played 8 games under Milovan’s four months in charge , winning just three, losing three and drawing two.
Two out of the three wins ended 1-0 in favour Ghana representing 66.7% of Ghana’s win rate.
The jinx of not performing in second stints with the Black Stars as we saw with Burkhard Ziese and Kwasi Appiah, it worked on the Serb though he had something special working for him here.
But the door has been shut now after the Stars worst ever performance at the continental showpiece and it is in the best interest of him to call it a time and finally rest and enjoy the memories while it lasts.