What made it especially painful was that, just briefly, it seemed they might get away with it. But they did not. Ghana did not get the win they needed in Angola on Friday and so Mohammed Kudus, Thomas Partey and Antoine Semenyo will not be at the next Cup of Nations, which begins in Morocco in December 2025.

Ghana have been terrible in the qualifiers. Their elimination is deserved. They went into their final pair of games needing to win both and hope Sudan lost both of theirs. The likelihood was that it would all be over on Thursday, when Sudan, managed by the former Ghana coach Kwesi Appiah, which has added a whole other tier of complication, went to Niger. But Niger won, 4-0. Nobody had expected that. For Ghana there was a glimmer of hope.

But it meant winning in Angola. After 18 minutes, Jordan Ayew whipped a 35-yard free-kick into the top corner, the sort of goal that belongs in legends, that the gods surely wouldn’t waste on a tame exit. Then Abdul Manaf Nurudeen saved M’Bala Nzola’s penalty with an outstretched foot. Add in the fact that the coach, Otto Addo, and his two assistants, the former West Ham defender John Paintsil and the former goalkeeper Fatau Dauda, suffered only minor injuries in a car crash in September when a pick-up swerved into their lane, and it all seemed ordained. At half-time the myths were already being written about a famous night in Luanda after a turbulent qualifying campaign leading to who knows what glory in Morocco.

The truth, though, is that there is a fecklessness to this Ghana. They are not missing out on the finals because of misfortune or a tough draw. They are missing out because they do not do the basic things well. Or, at times, at all. When Zini, in the middle of the goalmouth, eight yards out, headed in Felício Milson’s cross to equalise after 64 minutes, the closest player to him was his teammate Antonio Hossi. Ghana barely threatened after that, their Cup of Nations campaign ending, anticlimactically, more than a year before the finals begin. Sudan, meanwhile, are on the brink of qualification, which, given the civil war has meant they have had to play their home games in Libya, would be a remarkable achievement.

Ghana have not missed out since 2004, their only failure to qualify since the finals expanded to more than eight teams. They’re a fixture. By winning the tournament in 1963 and 1965, the Black Stars established themselves as the first great sub-Saharan African team. In the six tournaments between 2006 and 2017, they always got to at least the semi-final. At the moment they could call on not only Partey, Kudus and Semenyo, but also Iñaki Williams, Abdul Fatawu and Tariq Lamptey. Yet results have been waning. After a penalty shootout defeat by Tunisia in the last 16 in 2019, they have twice been eliminated in the group stage. In all three games in 2022 they conceded after the 80th minute, eliminated by an embarrassing 3-2 defeat by Comoros.

Milovan Rajevac was sacked for those performances in Cameroon, replaced by Addo with Chris Hughton as technical director. Two fine defensive performances helped them overcome their great rivals Nigeria on penalties in their World Cup qualifying playoff two years ago but, in Qatar, there was a wildness as they were eliminated in the group. Earlier this year at the Cup of Nations, with Hughton installed as head coach, the failings of two years earlier returned. They conceded a last-minute winner to Cape Verde, let a lead slip against Egypt and then, crushingly, having been 2-0 up against Mozambique, gave up two goals in injury time. The pattern has become horribly familiar: as the clock ticks down, Ghana panic.

View image in fullscreen

Hughton was sacked after the fiasco in Ivory Coast, with Addo returning. There had been a sense that Addo would restore some panache. Hughton’s cautious approach never seemed a good fit, which was one of the reasons he was personally threatened in the team hotel in Abidjan. But results have been dismal, the curse of late goals upsetting them again.

At home to Angola, Ghana conceded a 93rd-minute winner to Milson. Four days later, everything got a lot worse as Oumar Sako’s 81st-minute equaliser ensured Ghana dropped points away to Niger. Last month, they took a single point from two games against Sudan. Humiliatingly, they had to switch the home game from Kumasi to Accra because of safety concerns at the Baba Yara Stadium. Even then it took emergency upgrade work to get the stadium in the capital ready. That speaks of years of neglect.

The response of the president of the Ghana Football Association, Kurt Okraku, was to deliver a 15-minute speech to players before kick-off (broadcast on YouTube, of course). “Once you come here and you put on the shirt, that should give you the pride to fight, show passion, aggression, desire to win for your country,” he said. “When you draw games and I see players laughing, smiling, [it] is not acceptable. Thirty million people are suffering.” They drew 0-0; nobody was laughing or smiling. And still the situation got worse as Ghana lost the return 2-0.

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football

after newsletter promotion

So what’s gone wrong? There’s been talk of problems in youth development and it’s true that results have declined significantly since they won the Under-20 World Cup in 2009. Perhaps some sense of togetherness or collective style has been lost, but there’s no shortage of talented players.

The problem is getting them to play together. Semenyo, Lamptey and Williams were among eight withdrawals from the present squad. Partey was left out having withdrawn from the squad for the two games against Sudan, only to be available immediately for Arsenal. With Addo having in effect retired André Ayew from international football, that leaves the squad short of leaders.

Leadership, organisation, direction are generally lacking. There have been seven changes of coach since Avram Grant left in 2017, for which Okraku has to take responsibility. If players start to wonder whether it’s really worth pushing themselves to join a shambolic national squad, can they be blamed? With the talent available, Ghana should have gone to Morocco as one of the favourites. That they will not be there is the result of a profound carelessness.