Hamza Obeng, the former assistant coach of Hearts of Oak, believes that he and his boss Samuel Boadu were unable to complete their mission at the Phobian club before Boadu’s dismissal in September 2022, during the 2022/23 Ghana Premier League season.
Obeng expressed his sentiments, stating, “Yes, we did not finish our job. We have unfinished business at the club because it was our first time competing in Africa.”
He highlighted their achievements, such as eliminating CI Kamsar of Guinea in Accra and defeating WAC in Ghana before suffering a 6-1 loss in the return leg.
“We eliminated the team of Amos Frimpong (CI Kamsar of Guinea) in Accra. In out next game we defeated WAC here in Ghana before losing 6-1 over there. Look Africa is a project and we had used just six months to build a team but the North Africans have strong teams built over the years.
Obeng explained that building a strong team for African competitions takes time, and while they made progress, they needed more time to improve tactically and achieve greater victories.
“Then we defeated JS Sooura here in Ghana by 2-0 and we lost 4-0 there. So tactically it showed that we could improve by winning out games with more goals or bigger margins and we needed time to achieve this but never got the time.” , Obeng explained.
Anticipating their third African campaign, Obeng had expected to witness significant improvement, but unfortunately, circumstances didn’t align as hoped.
“So we thought that in our third time of going to Africa , we were going to see massive improvement but that was not to be the case” , he added.
Currently, Boadu is in charge of the Ghana national U17 men’s team (Black Satellites) and has yet to make a return to club coaching.