Wednesday, January 08, 2025
The Professor in Spite of Himself, Part 3
When not on national team duty during his time in Ghana, Carlos Alberto Parreira was given charge of the nation's top club team, Asante Kotoko.
There were political considerations involved. Based in the inland city of Kumasi, the Asante team had long been a symbol of the Asante (or Ashanti) people, a warrior nation that had fiercely resisted British colonization in a series of wars in the 19th century. During Ghana's transition to independence after the second world war, a separatist movement among the Asante had posed a serious threat to the embryonic nation's charismatic leader Kwame Nkrumah. "Kotoko" means porcupine in the local Twi language, and the porcupine, with all its connotations, was the symbol of the Asante people. By having a foreigner in charge of both Asante Kotoko and the national team, it was thought that tensions between the coastal Akan and Ewe groups and the inland Asante could be lessened.
Rather a large responsibility to put on the shoulders of an untried 23-year-old.
But Parreira responded to the challenge with typical youthful exuberance. Needless to say, a number of players from the national team represented Asante Kotoko as well, including the iconic striker Osei Kofi. Parreira adopted the same policy of concentrating on what he knew best, physical preparation. But, as we shall see, he was starting to display some tactical insight as well.
Victory in the African Cup of Champions Clubs, the forerunner to the CAF Champions League, was the main objective. In the previous year, Asante Kotoko had been knocked out at the quarter-final stage by Stade d'Abidjan of the Ivory Coast; this time, they believed they could go all the way.
Starting with a relatively straightforward win over Saint-Louisienne of Senegal, the "Porcupine Warriors" advanced to the quarter-finals, where their opponents would once again be Stade d'Abidjan. The Ghanaian team won the first leg 3-1, and Kofi recalls how Parreira decided to approach the second leg. The young coach had noticed that the Ivorian side had run out of puff towards the end of the first game, and surprisingly instructed the star striker to hang back in the first half of the return leg, barely crossing the halfway line. "But in the second half, when the Ivorians were tiring, he let me loose, and I scored three goals."
8-3 was the aggregate score, and Asante Kotoko narrowly defeated Djoliba of Mali in the semi-final. In the final, as in the African Nations Cup early the following year, their opponents would be from Congo-Kinshasa (Zaire). Tout-Puissant ("All-powerful") Englebert of Lubumbashi, now known as TP Mazembe, had been somewhat fortunate to reach the final, advancing from the first round via a drawing of lots and benefiting from a walkover in the quarter-finals.
Parreira recalls the two-legged final tie with a certain chagrin. After a 1-1 draw in Kumasi, Asante Kotoko were leading 2-1 in the return leg in Lubumbashi, before a large, volatile crowd. "Almost at the end of the game, my defender chested a ball, the ref said it was handball and gave a penalty. So it was 2-2."
No away-goals rule. "At the end of extra time, the ref said the winner would be decided by tossing a coin, but there was a pitch invasion and it became utter chaos. Afterwards we learnt that a third game had been organised, but no-one told us (!). The team from Zaire were declared champions, but I consider myself the winner too."
Parreira had learned much and grown both personally and professionally during his time in Ghana. He had harboured no ambitions to be a full-fledged football coach before that, but the seed had now been planted. When a German came to play a friendly in Ghana in 1968, Parreira was invited to come to Hanover to study audiovisual coaching aids. Keen for a new adventure, he accepted.
And it was in Germany that he encountered his old teacher Admildo Chirol, who offered him another tempting opportunity: would he like to join the physical preparation team for Brazil's upcoming World Cup campaign?
The answer, not surprisingly, was yes. To be concluded in Part 4.