The pride of every football country is to have the fulcrum of its national team players play in the top league’s even more gratifying is for them to play in England, arguably the best league in the world.
The niche of Ghanaian players playing overseas didn’t start today, we have a lot of our players ply their trade in Europe and beyond.
In the year, 1994, a young gem from Accra, Ghana, Nii Odartey Lamptey become the torchbearer for Ghanaian players to get an opportunity of playing with Premiership club, Aston Villa.
It wasn’t until January 1995 that Anthony Yeboah joined English club Leeds United from Eintracht Frankfurt for a transfer fee in the region of £3.4 million.
He went on to make several records, being the first Ghanaian goalscorer in the EPL, scoring 24 Premier League goals in 47 appearances for the club.
That single platform provided the opportunity for a host of Ghanaian players to make moves into England.
There was a certain time from 2005 going, we had the influx of Ghanaian players, Michael Essien (Chelsea) John Paintsil ( Westham United) , Sulley Muntari (Portsmouth), John Mensah, and Asamoah Gyan (Sunderland) that graced the Premiership around that same time, these players together with others helped the country secure its participation in 2006 and 2010 World Cup.
Evidently, these players gave their collective best when representing the country at the highest level. Ghana did well in those tournaments, a memory worth reliving.
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Then the latter-day saints came through some years down the line, the Ayew brothers graced Swansea at the time before they parted ways later on in their careers, Jeffrey Schlupp was doing his own thing at Crystal Palace, Daniel Amartey moved to Leicester City from Copenhagen.
In 2020, Mohammed Salisu(Southampton) and Thomas Partey transferred to England but the latter created loads of buzz with his transfer from Spanish outfit, Atletico Madrid to Arsenal, his whole transfer was a bit similar to that of Essien’s, who moved to Chelsea at the time from Lyon in 2005.
The midfielder had his own issues with recurring injury crises. Still, he’s had to overcome it with a host of match-winning performances for his Arsenal side vying to win the English Premier League this season, 202/23.
On the back hugely impressing for Bristol City, Antoine Semenyo secured a move to Bournemouth, Kamaldeen Sulemana as well with Southampton whiles Black Stars captain also made last gasp transfer deadline move back to the PL with newly promoted side, Nottingham Forest.
Currently, there are nine Ghanaian contingents in the English Premier League, a scarce sight to behold but the twist to all of these is that they are all BlackStars players, which will increase the level of competition and quality within the setup.
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Those days where our boys felt some considerable level of inferiority are gradually phasing off which should help them to impact significantly on the other squad players.
In recent times, our boys playing consistently at top levels should help most of them rub shoulders with the very best on the global stage.
The good times are certainly are coming back again, there a host of talented boys with the national team setup, and hopefully, the technical handlers make the most of their technical abilities before their usefulness goes extinct.
