There is, of course, an obsession with unbeaten runs in football.
Fans find pride, reasonably, in the fact that their team has been able to avoid defeat — that painful, detestable thing — for a number of games, whether many or just a few.
Often, though, the true worth of an unbeaten run – determined, if you ask me, by how many wins it features — is but an afterthought only pondered, maybe, after the streak ends.
For fans of Asante Kotoko, however, that reality was right at the forefront of their minds, as their team went into a fifth game of the 2020/21 season late last year.
Ahead of that postponed Ghana Premier League Week 3 fixture, versus Accra Great Olympics, Kotoko hadn’t lost any of their first four matches in all competitions.
They had, however, only won one of those — a hard-fought, narrow victory over Legon Cities — and head coach Maxwell Konadu might have had reason to look over his shoulder, even in a campaign that was just a few weeks old.
But that faint pride, of not being beaten, was shredded by an Olympics side that does know how to rub it in after a victory, especially if it’s a big one.
Konadu did lose his job a day later, and Kotoko were handed a fresh start. They took it, under interim technical leadership, and revived a season that had begun with a limp.
Soon, they were moving with a spring in their step, and, even though Kotoko’s continental adventures — in the CAF Champions League, first, and then the CAF Confederation Cup — quickly crashed, they drove towards domestic targets, going from one good result to another.
The Porcupine Warriors are now top of the league table, an improbable prospect at the time Olympics beat them in December 2020, and — following the appointment as head coach of former Ghana manager Mariano Barreto a couple of weeks ago — have strung together another four-match unbeaten run.
And, this time, it is certainly worth reveling in: a proper unbeaten run of three wins and one draw, seven goals scored and just one conceded.
Let’s see how, on Friday, Olympics — currently second on the log, a point behind Kotoko — try to end this one.
Yaw Frimpong — Ink & Kicks
