Penalty shootouts must be a national policy – Damba

A member of Ghana’s 1992 AFCON team, Abukari Damba has proposed a comprehensive plan to address Ghana’s penalty challenges.

Ghana’s struggle with penalties came to light once again on Sunday as the local Black Stars lost out on a third WAFU Nations Cup to Senegal.

The Black Stars blew away three kicks to hand the host country their first-ever WAFU trophy.

Records also indicate that the Black Stars are yet to win a penalty shootout since beating Libya at the 1982 Africa Cup of Nations.

Notably, the Stars have lost two AFCON finals on penalties to Ivory Coast (1992 and 2015) with Damba being part of the first defeat.

Despite his concession that the country’s record in the lottery is down to mentality issues, Damba insists that a national policy that details how footballers at the grassroot level will effect free kicks and penalty kicks will go a long way to help the nation.

He suggested that the next GFA administration must as part of its plans for colts football include compulsory shootouts trainings for upcoming footballers.

“I remember during my playing days penalty shootouts were part of a system that anytime you played a game and draw, you had to go for penalty shootouts. Penalty shootouts were an integral part of the system. It is up to the FA and the directorate to couch a policy to accept this one”.

“It is important we discuss it. It’s a good point that when we make it a national issue the penalty shootout should be part and parcel of our league system so that we can improve on the penalty shootout”, he said.

Damba also offered some important tips to goalkeepers on penalty shootouts.

“I always advice my goalkeepers to stay and react to situations. Don’t anticipate because we have some goalkeepers who always want to anticipate the situation and think for the goalkeeper and end up going the opposite direction but penalty takers are more frustrated when you only wait and react”, he said.