Three cheers for Ghana’s football legend Abedi Ayew Pele for producing a worthy son, Andre Ayew, to lead the junior national team to win the Africa Cup, something that eluded him during his illustrious career as a football maestro.

Three cheers for Andre Ayew for magnificently stepping into his father’s shoes. Let the skies be his limit. Three cheers also for Coach Sellas Tetteh for steering the Black Satellites to that splendid 2-0 victory over Cameroun in the final of the Africa Youth championship in Kigali on Sunday. He should be grateful to the Football Association for helping him to find his level. Finally, three cheers for the 2009 generation of the Satellites for emulating the fine example set by their predecessors in Mauritius 1993 and Ethiopia 2001.

Sunday’s final brought exciting memories of the 1993 decider between the two countries that incidentally were in the same group like this year’s and met in the preliminaries. The difference this year was that, the Satellites drew 1-1 with Cameroun but the 1993 team won 1-0. Indeed the Satellites had to fight back from an early goal deficit to settle for a draw; thanks to that marvellous header from a perfect cross from goal king Ransford Osei.

After this pulsating draw with the Satellites, Cameroon drew 1-1 again in their next match with Rwanda but won the next two games with comfortable victories over Mali 3-0 and 2-0 over Nigeria. Ghana, on the other hand won three straight victories over Mali 2-0, Rwanda 2-0 and a narrow 4-3 over South Africa to reach the final. The interesting aspect of the Satellites’ semi final match against South Africa was that the South Africans were 4-1 down midway through the second half but they showed amazing fighting spirit and got two goals back leaving the Satellites to fight for survival in the end.

The Satellites must have learnt some lessons from the South African match because you could see that when they took an early lead against Cameroon in the final, they never relaxed, now very conscious of the fact that it is not over until it’s all over. Well done boys. Ransford Osei, Dede Ayew, Dominic Adiyiah and Agyeman Badu continued to be on the rampage and even though they missed some begging chances, Ransford Osei could not be denied his ambition of topping the scoring charts and he wrapped up the “insurance second goal” to make victory certain for Ghana and brought his tally in the championships to seven

At this juncture I would like to make special mention of central defender Jonathan Mensah, who read the game well and scooped the ball from the goal line when goalkeeper Agyei mistimed an apparent back pass from the rear. This young man has a bright future.

This victory should serve as a good moral booster for new President Atta Mills, a keen sports enthusiast who has promised to put Ghana Sports on a high pedestal. It is hoped that the Football Association would continue to monitor the progress of these young players so that they would really blossom to be the future Abedi Peles, Michael Essiens, Anthony Yeboahs and Sulley Muntaris.

It is a healthy sign of good management that a couple of these teenagers have been earmarked for the local senior team Black Stars preparing for the maiden African Nations Cup in Cote d’Ivoire next month. That is the spirit. Let these youngsters be exposed to as many international matches as possible and the nation could be on the production line of many international stars. With the tidy number of good stadia around the country, it is time we arranged a mixture of special periodic international matches to make the stadia useful and keep the players busy. The sages say a used key is always polished and the last time I checked I had confirmation that the stadia were not meant to be museums. Action please!

Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.