We need players who are proud to wear the national jersey.

 We need players who are proud to wear the national jersey. 

Thomas Partey led the Black Stars to a 5-1 victory over Congo on Tuesday in Brazzaville. His performance may have given Ghana's 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign some life after an unusually bad start.

With Kwasi Appiah's group practically blowing away their Reality Cup trusts subsequent to dropping two imperative focuses against the Congolese in a 1-1 game in Kumasi, Ghanaians discounted the group's possibilities of coming to a fourth back-to-back Mundial. And the repercussions of the match on Friday, especially after team captain Asamoah Gyan; Andre Ayew, his deputy, and Jordan Ayew withdrew from yesterday's return match in Brazzaville due to health and injury issues, which hardly garnered the team's needed support.

The previous triumph, which saw Partey scoring a full go-around and Richmond Boakye-Yiadom hitting support, scarcely won back Ghanaians in light of the fact that the Dark Stars may very well have left it past the point of no return in the qualifiers. Despite this, Coach Appiah and the team's management committee should ponder the fact that the team performed admirably and won so decisively without any prominent players.

It is common knowledge that the team's most prominent players have not been performing at their best recently and have lacked the kind of inspirational performance required to advance Ghana to the World Cup, as was the case in the three prior qualifying campaigns. Additionally, Gyan and Andre's subpar performance in the game on Friday, which was followed by their withdrawal from the subsequent matchup due to speculative claims of injury, added fuel to the fire of suspicion regarding a power play.

Gyan just made it clear in an interview that the players weren't hungry enough to beat the Congolese. Although this is a sincere admission, Gyan's admission that "the desire wasn't there today" was nothing short of an accusation on his part as a team leader that he and his teammates were not mentally and tactically prepared to compete for a spot in Russia next year, where football's most important international event is held. Regardless of how you look at it, yesterday's victory in Brazzaville showed that younger players are still ready to play with commitment and desire and wear the national jersey with pride.

Even though it came late in the day, Coach Appiah still had to be firm and patient in order to make sure that only players who are eager for the big stage and ready to fight for the national cause are invited to the team for future assignments. Yesterday's huge victory probably won't save Ghana's World Cup hopes. Appiah's failure to successfully manage indiscipline among his enormous name players subverted Ghana's Reality Cup crusade in Brazil quite a while back and it is no time like the present he guaranteed that his players wear the public pullover with a feeling of satisfaction, and those without the craving to play with enthusiasm hacked out, regardless of whose bull is gutted.