So Laryea Kingston is gone. And not quietly. He made quite the noise on his way out.

Moments after losing the WAFU Zone B semifinal to Burkina Faso on Saturday, the Black Starlets coach announced his resignation without informing the Ghana Football Association (GFA). 

According to the GFA, he got off the team bus while on his way to the team hotel and was not present at the team's evening meeting as well.

Mmmm. Laryea Kingston and anger. Now where have I heard that before?

Even before Saturday's explosive press conference, Laryea has always had a reputation for being a firebrand with a combustible temper. Reference is often made to his squabble with then-Black Stars coach Milovan Rajevac, in France in 2010. 

The scene is set in France in the final week of May 2010. Ghana, like other World Cup-bound countries sponsored by Puma, was camping in France at the invitation of the German kit manufacturer before the tournament in South Africa.

Laryea Kingston was one of 30 players invited for the five-day camp in Paris. Having missed the 2006 World Cup due to a red card against Senegal at AFCON 2006, the former Hearts of Oak winger arrived in Paris, hoping to banish the demons of yesteryear.

In one of the training sessions, Laryea clattered into Bernard Yao Kumordzi, with whom Laryea was contesting for a central midfield role. This was in 2010. Laryea, then a 30year-old, no longer had the pace to burn. Over time, he had morphed into a right midfielder, sort of.

So the competitive spirit of the training session was unavoidable. And somehow, it happened. He slid into Yao Kumordzi and took quite a bit of him. Kumordzi's ankle was decimated and he was ruled out of action for a month, ending his World Cup hopes. Yet, he was graceful enough to accept Laryea's apology for the incident. While Kumordzi let the matter slide, not everyone did.

Certainly not Milovan Rajevac, who favored youth over experience. When he announced the final World Cup list, Laryea Kingston was notably missing. 

According to Yaw Ampofo Ankrah who reported for JoySports at the time, Laryea confronted Rajevac over the decision. Of course, the Ghana Football Association denied Yaw Ampofo Ankrah's report. 

True or not, that story has tainted Laryea's image.

The latest eruption of his volcanic temper will breathe further life into the perception that he has a very short fuse. On Saturday, Laryea admitted that he was not happy about how his international career ended.

"I know Ghanaians know me as a player and are familiar with the sacrifices I made for the country during my playing days."

"I gave my all as a player, but in the end, I wasn’t happy," he said.

It was a difficult thing to admit. But the truth is, Laryea was one of the four, along with Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah, and Sulley Muntari, that formed the spine of the team that qualified Ghana to its first World Cup. When others did not turn up for AFCON 2006, saving themselves for the tournament in Germany, Laryea showed up to serve his country. When he was suspended for Ghana's first three World Cup games following the red card in Egypt, he begged to be listed regardless. Sadly, his pleas were ignored. Later when Ghana qualified for the round of 16 after finishing second in their group, the rejection would hurt even more.

Four years later, he would miss another World Cup despite helping in securing qualification.  So when Laryea says he was not properly appreciated, he is right. Perhaps his reaction to whatever got him to erupt on Saturday was as a result of all the pent-up frustration from many years ago. 

All that is past and we all need to look forward. None, more so, than Laryea himself. 

If he is to have a career in coaching, he will require image rehabilitation. I am not in a position to determine whether he needs anger management or any form of therapy. But he needs to show a departure from the personality currently attributed to him. Not only for the optics but because he cannot coach otherwise. 

At his next job, his patience, man-management skills, and ability to take on criticisms will all be tested. That is not to say that Laryea does not have admirable skills. 

We are told that the new Starlets Management Committee had "philosophical differences" with him over the complexion of the Starlets team. There have been suggestions that Laryea was fixated on pool A, essentially neglecting some quality players in pool B whom the committee felt ought to have been part of the WAFU campaign.

When asked, Laryea explained himself in an erudite manner and insisted on proceeding with pool A. In an environment like ours, being firm and consistent is perhaps as important as tactical nous. Laryea's cussedness is even more admirable when considering the fact that many experienced coaches before Laryea have succumbed to what is really interference veiled as suggestions. 

Beyond firmness, his meticulousness and communication skills have not gone unnoticed. Add those to his tactical nous skills and he has all the makings of a fine coach. Nearly all. 

What remains is his human relations. The truth is, the football administrators he will work with are of a similar make as those on the Black Starlets Management Committee. Willy-nilly. They are cut from the same cloak.

Unless Laryea is saying goodbye in perpetuity to national team jobs, he needs to repair his relationship with the GFA. 

Beyond these, Laryea needs to test his ideas in a more competitive environment. He cannot repeat the mistake others made by keeping their certificates on the shelves while waiting for the next national team jobs. 

Many of the last batch of the CAF License A coaches have been reluctant to take this bold step. Take, for instance, David Ocloo. After completing his badges, Ocloo chose the glamorous job of coaching the Access Bank corporate team to test his ideas. How impressive! Little surprise that when he eventually got a real coaching job, his ideas were so stale that they nearly relegated Liberty Professionals. After that failure, he recoiled and chose to be Prosper Ogum's assistant at Asante Kotoko. The next time he was in charge of a team, he nearly relegated Accra Hearts of Oak last season. Just like before, he sought refuge in the comfort of an assistant role at Kotoko. 

Laryea cannot afford to take a similar path.

Where do the Starlets go from here? 

Laryea Kingston's exit leaves the Starlets in the lurch. Regrettably, yes, but there are lessons to be learned. The quality of Laryea's supporting cast was hardly inspiring. Jacob Nettey and Nana Agyemang. The sum of Jacob Nettey's experience as a coach has been to serve as an assistant at Shooting Stars across two spells and one botched stint with Banana Inn F.C. Nana Agyemang is a CAF Licence A and UEFA Licence B holder, previously worked with lower-tier sides Adenta United, Barbarossa Academy, the Lizzy Sports Complex Academy, and ProGen Football Club.

So Laryea Kingston's lieutenants were essentially two gentlemen with nothing but experimental ideas and no real coaching experience. For a job as important as the Black Starlets, that is unacceptable. That kind of experimentation needs to end after this tournament.

There is a reason experience is prioritized elsewhere. Take Argentina for example. Between 1994 and 2001, their Under 20 team was coached by Jose Pekermann. Before Pelermann was given the job, he had coached Youth teams for a combined thirteen years. Yes. Thirteen. Little wonder that in seven years, he delivered the FIFA World Youth Championships three times and the South American Youth Championships twice.

While we are at it, we might as well reconsider the definition of talent in Ghana. Thanks to the CAF's ridiculous decision to play these Qualifiers in zone Ghana has to slug it out with Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso etc. The last of those teams have beaten us twice in the last two qualifying tournaments; the last time was a 2-1 loss in Cape Coast and this time, at the spanking new Legon Stadium. A common theme in these defeats to Burkina Faso is physicality.

Two different Starlets have been bullied into submission. I suspect the same thing would happen had we played Cameroun or Nigeria. (Nigeria did beat us in the opening game of the last tournament in Cape Coast).

Perhaps it is time we recruit players to reflect the peculiar needs of our zone. That should not be difficult. If the coaches look well, they can find talented players with the right size to level the playing ground. The days of fielding Moses Odjer and Clifford Aboagye in major tournaments are long gone. And we need to adjust or continue being a near team.

So what next?

As for what comes next, we can only hope that Agyemang and Nettey's experimental ideas will deliver a face-saving result over Nigeria. It is not a dead rubber game. Not yet.

As JoySports editor Fentuo Tahiru Fentuo reported over the weekend, Ghana is not fully out of contention to qualify for the U17 AFCON yet. CAF is yet to confirm the number of teams that will qualify for the 2025 U17 AFCON. In the past, only the two finalists advanced to the 12-team tournament, where the last four remaining teams then booked tickets to the FIFA U-17 World Cup. However, following the expansion of the 2025 U17 FIFA World Cup from 24 teams to 48 teams, Africa will now produce as many as nine or ten representatives instead of the previous four. 

CAF is yet to decide whether to expand its U-17 AFCON or develop a different format in choosing the ten representatives. If the tournament is expanded, WAFU B could get three or four representatives. That would mean Ghana could qualify for the tournament if they win their third-place playoff game.

Qatar will host the next five editions of the now annual FIFA U-17 World Cup from 2025 through to 2029.