By: David Kyei

Date: 07-06-11

For their ability to fight up from their initial fourteenth position to a respectable second, team Kotoko has drawn commendation from the Technical Advisor to the Executive Chairman.

‘Johnny’, as Malik Jabir is affectionately called was full of joy after the team travelled to Tarkwa to crush the home invincibility of Mediama FC in the last match of the 2010/11 Glo Premier League.

The match was a charged one as for the fans, it was a matter of revenge for Kotoko on Mediama for being the first club that beat Kotoko in the first week of the season.

It was therefore a matter of joy as the club braved the soggy pitch to inflict a painful 0-1 defeat on their opponents.

As the technical man and seeing the match purely with his professional lenses, Malik says the team played about the most disciplined and technically astute game he has seen of them in the just ended season.

“Here was a match where even the pitch itself to be played on was technically wrong. It was so soggy and muddy that that first thing that would get into any player’s mind when he steps on the field would be injury and injury, but our players went in and played to all the instructions that were given them before the match”.

“Besides, their play was compact and I saw players covering up for each other. They did not give Mediama players the room to operate and that was good for us as a team”.

“Besides, the tactics used for the match was so simplistic and so the players did not have difficulty understanding and complying”.

Much as people were not enthused about the poor nature of the pitch, Malik says if the performance of the players on the very bad pitch was anything to go by, then the better it was for the team.

“If playing on a bad pitch will compel the players to put up a disciplined performance and play strictly to instructions, then I wish that we always play on such a poor pitch so as to get the best out of our players,” he sarcastically chipped in.

Finally, he praised Coach Korak for the strategy he and his assistants employed for the match.

According to him, the 4-1-4-1 strategy in the first half worked perfectly for Kotoko as the main weapon was to absorb the pressure and quickly switch into a counter attack.

“You could see from the first half that much as Mediama wanted to win, they were afraid to commit men forward because of their fear of our counter attacks which was being spearheaded by the strong Ahmed Toure”.

“Changing the face of the second half by bringing on Alex Asamoah to play the 4-4-2 formation was the icing on the cake as Mediama had to commit more men into defence, no wonder pressure eased on us and through that we had the much needed goal”.

“I commend Korak and his team for a job well done”