Otto Addo, at his unveiling as substantive head coach of the Black Stars in March, was hesitant about assuring the delivery of results.

What he was willing to guarantee, though, was something else Ghanaian fans place a premium on: good football.

“I want to bring back the joy of watching us play,” Addo said, vowing that his “players will not be afraid of the ball”.

Many listening would have been skeptical about whether the manager, though well-intentioned, could fulfil that ambition.

The football when Addo was first at the helm, for much of 2022 down until that year's FIFA World Cup, was hardly the sort that set the pulses racing, and the Black Stars hadn't excited their fans in a very long while.

Four games into his return, it has largely been more of the same old gruel being dished out.

There wasn't much to enjoy about the performances against Nigeria and Uganda that marked the beginning of Addo's second coming, and the fact that neither game was won certainly didn't help. Even in the next two outings, which saw Ghana beat Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR), the collective displays were error-strewn and below-par for large spells.

What they lacked in panache and conviction, however, Ghana made up for with sheer pluck and mental fortitude. Those, too, are traits that have been sorely missing from the Black Stars of late, making them a side likelier to cede leads — see the 2-2 draws with Mozambique and Uganda earlier this year — than (re)claim them.

On both occasions — in hostile Bamako and, four days later, on a drenched Baba Yara Stadium pitch — however, the Black Stars fought back to turn the course of the games around and end up winning, albeit narrowly.

If there was any encouraging takeaway from the pair of 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, it was that sharpened psychological edge — “the positive spirit,” Addo calls it.

“Despite being behind away in Mali and now here again, to come back from difficult situations needs to be mentioned,” he expounded in his remarks following last night's 4-3 defeat of the CAR.

That mentality and the ability to act on it, one could argue, are far more essential building blocks in the construction of a winning team than aesthetics and flair are. And as much as Ghana winning games with a minimum of fuss would be appreciated and is definitely the way to go, the not-so-straightforward games do come with their own gains.

Hopefully, enough of those have been gleaned from the latest international assignments to last Addo's Black Stars project a good while — now, on to the finger-licking stuff he said was on the menu.