IF every cloud has its silver lining, then Ghanaians may want to turn their attention to the years ahead as the challenging ‘cloud’ of 2019 steadily wobbles away, leaving in its trail tears for Ghana sports.

Without any shred of doubt, this year cannot be said to have a hunky-dory story as regards football, and to some extent boxing, as Ghanaians were made to suffer knock-out shocks and penalty headaches amid eliminations by some of the country’s national teams.

As it is becoming usual now, the senior national team, Black Stars, were bundled out of July’s African Cup of Nations in Egypt, following a  penalty shoot-out defeat to Tunisia in the Round of 16. Following a 1-1 draw after extra-time, the game was forced into ‘lotteries’, which eventually ended 5-4 in favour of the Carthage Eagles after Caleb Ekuban missed his kick. The defeat prolongs the nation’s wait for a fifth trophy to 39 years, come Cameroon 2021.

The most painful, last month, probably was the one unleashed by the Under-23 Team, Black Meteors, when they lost to South Africa during the shoot-out, thus, failing to pick a ticket to next year’s Olympic Games in Japan.

Four teams – hosts Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa will be representing the continent in Japan – the last two countries benefiting from Ghana’s miserable penalty malaise to scrape through.  One too many, Ghana football has been swallowed up by the ‘penalty demon’ – throwing the nation into unending tears of torment.

Many are still at a loss as to how Ghana’s Black Meteors failed to make it to Tokyo, despite being given two lifelines in 96 hours. In the first instance, the Meteors rallied up to draw 2-2 in the semi-final encounter against Cote d’Ivoire in the CAF Under-23 African Cup of Nations (AFCON), before crashing at the spot-kicks.

Then came the third-place play-off that ended 2-2 with Ghana grabbing a last-gasp redeemer. The penalty kicks were quickly invoked. A win for the Meteors was going to send them to Ghana’s first Olympic Games in 16 years. They were tipped to make amends. But sadly, after throwing away their first kick, the South Africans went ahead to win 6-5. The Meteors were out rather distressingly!

Come to think of it, Ghana’s Black Queens also had their 2020 Olympic Games dream cut short after being eliminated by Kenya in the third round of the qualifications on October 8.

The Harambee Starlets beat Ghana for the very first time with a 1-0 victory in a second leg tie after extra-time – the first round encounter having failed to produce goals.

Earlier in October, Ghana’s Team B also failed to defend their WAFU Nations Cup trophy after slumping 3-1 on penalties to hosts Senegal in the grand final.

The intriguing final at the Stade Lat-Dior finished in a stalemate at the end of regular time, but both teams found the target in the second-half of extra-time, to force the tie to be determined through the lottery.

Interestingly, the Stars in the same competition had recorded a stunning 5-4 penalty shoot-out triumph over Burkina Faso after their quarter-final fixture had ended 1-1 in regulation. Perhaps, it was just a nine-day wonder.

The only stirring piece of news was that Ghana captain Shafiu Mumuni finished as the competition’s top scorer of the competition with four goals.

At the club level, Kumasi Asante Kotoko were bowled out of the CAF Champions League and the Confederation Cup.  Kotoko were first flushed from the group stage of the CAF Champions League after a 3-0 defeat to 10-man Etoile du Sahel side in Monastir, having won the first leg 2-0 in Kumasi.

That failureculminated in their demotion to the Confederation Cup. Sadly, Ivorian side San Pedro, dealt a huge blow to that campaign too, as they defeated Kotoko on a 2-1 aggregate.

Ghana’s other representatives – Ashanti Gold, began the CAF Confederation Cup mission on a blistering note, holding Akonangui of Guinea Bissau 1-1 away before crushing them 3-0 at Obuasi to qualify for the second round. However, the Miners were halted in the second round by RSB Berkane of Tunisia who beat them on a 4-3 aggregate.

Both Kotoko and Ashanti Gold appeared to have suffered from lack of full-blooded competitive game, following the ‘icing’ on domestic football, ala Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ documentary on the scandal of Ghana football.

Heartily, there was panoply of thrilling news at the Africa Games in Morocco with Ghana’s strong-hearted men clinching gold in the men’s 4×100 metres, stunning the much-vaunted Nigerian team.

Team Ghana, with the quartet consisting of Joseph Paul Amoah, Benjamin Azamati, Martin Owusu-Antwi, and Sean Safo-Antwi, recorded 38.30 seconds to bag the gold medal, while Nigeria finished second with a time of 38.59 seconds. Bronze medal was taken by South Africa, whose team finished the race in 38.80 seconds.

In the women’s event, Team Ghana finished in a not-up-to-scratch eighth place. The quartet of Gemma Acheampong, Hor Halutie, Flings Owusu-Agyapong, and Persis William-Mensah were the slowest in the pack, finishing with a time of 47.24 seconds in a race won by Nigeria’s ladies.

However, golden-girl Rose Amoanimaa Yeboah swaggered away with gold medal in the women’s high jump event as Deborah Acquah clinched silver medal in the women’s long jump event.Grace Obour also grooved away with the bronze medal in the women’s 400 metres event.

By far, weightlifting stole the show for Ghana at the Games, winning one silver and seven bronze medals.

Star-girl Winnifred Ntumi grabbed all three bronze medals in the women’s 45 kg events, while David Akwei won bronze medal in the men’s 61 kg clean and jerk event.

Christian Amoah collected bronze medals in the men’s 89 kg events. Forrester Osei also won the silver medal in the men’s 89 kg clean and jerk event.

Ghana’s former weightlifting idol, Juliana Arkoh, also in September broke new grounds in the powerlifting world in Canada, after clinching four gold medals at the 8th Commonwealth Powerlifting Championship 2019. Supremely magnificent performance, doubtless.

The national armwrestling team, the Golden Arms, in July, added to the all-time medal haul by any federation, after grabbing 18 medals at the 10th Africa Armwrestling Championships in Bamako, Mali.

The Golden Arms, who went into the 2019 Championship as the defending champion, proudly managed 11 gold, 5 silver and 2 bronze medals to secure 3rd position out of 12 countries including Egypt, Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and eventual champions Mali.

Indeed, the less-financed disciplines have shown that given the requisite push, they would take Ghana to places. Desolately, they have almost always been given a raw deal.

As said somewhere in the piece, boxing tortured many hearts as Ghana would finish the year without a champion, following the round-two crushing of defending IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey by Teofimo Lopez at the Madison Square Garden last Saturday night.

But months before Commey’s stunning loss, somewhere in May, Ghana’s Isaac ‘Royal Storm Dogboe, had surrendered his WBO super bantamweight title to Emanuel Navarrete via a 12-round TKO. Navarrete had recorded an overwhelming unanimous decision over the Ghanaian in December 2018, proving that the win was no fluke, at all.

The year also saw Kurt ‘The GameChanger’ Okraku being elected as President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), succeeding Kwesi Nyantakyi, who had been at the helm of affairs for 13 years before the Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ thundering exposé.

He garnered 44 votes in the first round of voting with George Afriyie coming close with 40 votes, while Nana Yaw Amponsah and Fred Pappoe got 27 and six votes respectively.

In the second round of the voting, Kurt missed the required 50 per cent plus one by just two votes after he secured 59 votes while George Afriyie got 43 votes with Nana Yaw Amponsah also earning 16 votes.

The election was then thrown into a third round of voting in accordance with the GFA Statutes and to elect a winner who can cross the 50-plus-one mark. Afriyie, however, thrown in the towel and applauded Kurt.

Let us see what the new FA President brings on board as the 2019/2020 Ghana Premier League (GPL) is slated to start from December 27. One can only wish him well as he attempts to drive the nation’s football to nirvana.