Abukari Damba, a former Ghana goalkeeper has called on the technical team of the Black Stars to maintain Jojo Wollacott as the first choice goalkeeper ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Damba, who was a reserve goalkeeper for Ghana at the 1992 Africa Cup of Nations and onetime goalkeepers’ trainer for the
Wollacott has gained recognition following his impressive performance during the 2022 World Cup playoffs against Nigeria in March.
Despite his unimpressive performance at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations [AFCON], the Swindon Town goalkeeper has become the first choice under Otto Addo.
Damba, in assessing the performance of the national goalies, observed that the impressive performance of Abdul Manaf Nurudeen against Chile in the just-ended Kirin Cup in Japan, coupled with the return of former first-choice goalie, Richard Ofori, would create competition and give the team’s technical handlers a selection headache.
However, the former Dreams FC goalkeeper;s trainer said one outstanding game was not enough to make a fair assessment of the capabilities of Nurudeen, for instance, thus Wollacott must certainly be our best bet at the World Cup, having given a good account of himself since making his international debut in a World Cup qualifier against Zimbabwe last October.
“I think if we're going to be very fair, and looking at the current performances of these goalkeepers over time, in terms of reliability and consistency, Wollacott stands tall among the goalkeepers,” looking at his current exploits,” Damba told Graphic Sports.
''Wollacott was scouted from a lower division league in England but then we all thought it was quite a difficult ground for him because he was brought in at a very difficult time and he was thrown straight into the hot seat. In my opinion, it was a difficult thing to do but he stood up to the challenge even though he had difficult times and slowly he started building his confidence. We all saw his exploits in the last AFCON and the World Cup qualifiers.
Damba further explained that the work of goalkeeping in modern-day football had evolved from merely stopping the ball from entering the net to helping in building an attack, which was a quality that most of our current goalkeepers lacked, with Wollacott having a slight edge over the other contenders for the position.
“We have qualities of goalkeepers who are shot-stoppers and I’ll tell you honestly that the goalkeepers we have in Ghana currently if you look at Wollacott if you look at Ofori, these are typical shot-stoppers.
“I am saying shot-stopper because if you look around the world currently football has evolved and if you look at the current trend of goalkeeping, their roles, and responsibilities when it comes to playing as a libero or a sweeper in terms of technical qualities with the feet, our goalkeepers are not at the highest level as far as playing as the plus one is concerned,” he observed.