You’ve probably read a few reviews already on the latest match-week of the Ghana Premier League (GPL), and that’s fine.
What, though, about a review that flips the script right over, revealing all those not-so-serious details you missed?
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It was a mixed weekend for goalkeepers who dared attempt what their basic skill-set and job description give them little right to attempt, with Alisson Becker scoring a late winner for Liverpool at The Hawthorns that sustained the Reds’ hopes of securing UEFA Champions League football to end a miserable season with the closest semblance of a flourish.
In Ghana, however, one over-zealous goalkeeper who refused to mind ‘his business’ didn’t exactly cover himself in glory.
Razak ‘I-trust-my-feet’ Abalora certainly felt at home and at ease when his current team, Asante Kotoko, visited the WAFA Park in Sogakope where he once cut his teeth as a young goalie.
Quite early in the game, against Liberty Professionals, Abalora raced outside his area to pick up a seemingly innocuous back-pass; not that he had any reason to, though, as a teammate appeared to have the situation covered.
But Abalora, being Rene Higuita adventurous and all, ploughed on regardless, and his first touch was actually a thing of beauty, taking the ball through the legs of onrushing Liberty forward Kweku Karikari.
Back to his station, then? 🤷🏽♂️
Not so fast.
Rather than retreat, in fact, Abalora only strayed even farther, seeking one touch too many and eventually playing himself into a mighty mess when Karikari got the ball under his own control, spun, and quickly fired goal-ward a shot that was just a little short on power.
Moral of the story: stick to the basics as a goalkeeper — unless, of course, you really have to go this far… 👇🏾
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The general consensus is that Maxwell Kofi Owusu’s handling of Accra Hearts of Oak’s game with Elmina Sharks on Sunday was a truly horrendous affair, one of the worst performances of any referee this season, and criticism has been fairly directed at him from all angles.
The biggest critic of them all?
Well — surprise, surprise — himself.
Uh-huh… 🙄
“This was absolutely not a good decision,” he posted on Facebook about arguably his biggest blunder of the evening, a bad penalty awarded to Hearts which Victor Aidoo (yes, him again) rightly missed, adding that “this should never happen again”.
Spot on, Brother Maxwell.
Since you brought this up, sir, we’d absolutely love to hear your candid views on everything else that went wrong (including blowing your whistle with so much gusto at the end of that terrible first half that the poor thing dropped to the turf).
Any ideas? 🤷🏽♂️
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IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Yaw Frimpong — Ink & Kicks
