When news broke that Dr. Prosper Narteh Ogum had left his role as head coach of Asante Kotoko, almost a year to this day, few could have seen it coming.
The academic-cum-tactician had just pulled off a stellar campaign that saw the Porcupine Warriors win the Ghana Premier League title for the first time in eight years. And they did it emphatically, racking up 67 points — a tally that converts to the highest point-per-game average by which the championship had been won in a decade.
They did it in style, too, playing some of the best football to be found anywhere in the land. A lot of that was down to the quality of players Kotoko had, but Ogum takes ultimate credit for it.
We’d always known just how well he could make his teams play, especially from his time at the West African Football Academy (Wafa). But it was at Kotoko, where he moved from Wafa in September 2021, that Ogum finally had access to the personnel and the platform required to convert all that aesthetic value into tangible success.
He took full advantage of the opportunity, delivering long-awaited league glory on the first attempt. Even before Kotoko was handed the trophy — on a truly memorable occasion in June 2022 marked with a 3-0 thrashing of Elmina Sharks, another of Ogum’s former clubs — fans were already dreaming about what was still to come.
Back-to-back domestic titles seemed a distinct possibility, while impact in the Caf Champions League felt like a realistic target for the first time in decades.
Neither, however, materialised.
Ogum vacated his post, reportedly after falling out with the Nana Yaw Amponsah-led Management over key issues, leaving the fans and their lofty hopes in the lurch. The carpet had been pulled from under their feet, and the 45-year-old’s employers didn’t take it very well. No official announcement of Ogum’s exit was made on any of the platforms available to the club, shockingly, while the coach was promptly unfollowed on Twitter.
Ogum, on the other hand, handled the situation with more grace. If the divorce was acrimonious on his part, too, he didn’t show it. There were no parting shots, of the kind one might expect when love turns sour — and that’s probably what has made it easy for him to return to the club now.
After a period of uncertainty that followed the recent expiry of the respective mandates of the Kumasi-based outfit’s Board and Management, the Asantehene, Kotoko’s Owner and Life Patron, has named and tasked an Interim Management Committee (IMC) “to ensure the club fulfils all the statutory obligations for the Premier League and prepare a formidable team for the next season”.
One of four members of that IMC, Ogum would render service to the club as head of the technical team, as confirmed last Saturday. The manner in which he departed suggests Ogum has unfinished business he’d be keen to resume, but he will find the Kotoko he returns to rather unlike the one he walked away from 12 months ago.
Even from afar, surely as an interested observer, he must have noticed.
The playing body, true, hasn’t changed a whole lot, though shorn of some of those who figured heavily in the title-winning season. But Kotoko are far from the dominant force they were during Ogum’s earlier tenure, having made a shambolic defence of their league crown.
Kotoko went through the latter half of last term without a substantive coach, following the dismissal of Seydou Zerbo, the man originally appointed Ogum’s successor. They finished eight full points behind eventual champions Medeama, and miles away from the standards Ogum had meticulously established.
Those are the heights of excellence Ogum would now seek to return Kotoko to, and the recruitment drive he pursues would be key to achieving that, keeping in mind the 2023/24 season kicks off in less than two months. One gets the impression, though, that Ogum’s very presence will lift morale among players and fans alike.
Second comings are, of course, never guaranteed to yield the sort of success experienced the first time, and there is no shortage of warning examples. Still, Ogum — who hasn’t coached another club since leaving Kotoko — would be confident of picking up right where he left off.
