Michael essien, one of Ghana’s favourite football giant has been missen from most of the popular league scenes for sometime now.
After spending five years in France, beginning his first international football career with Bastia. Essien within that same five years moved on to join ligue 1 title holders Lyon also in France.
The formidable defensive midfielder had his peak football career during his hay days at Chelsea in England.
It started when he signed a deal with premier league side Chelsea in 2005.
Moving from Lyon to Chelsea, the transfer fee then was €24.4 million, which made him Africans most expensive footballer at the time.
Ahistory Africans and posterity will be proud to read about.
During these period Essien achieved some incredible feet.
Few among them are:
BBC African footballer of the year 2006
Chelsea player of the year 2006/2007
Ghana player of the year 2007
As a Ghanaian International player, Essien represented Ghana during the 1999 FIFA U-17 World Championship and 2001 World Youth Championships.
He started playing for the Ghana senior team in 2002. He represented Ghana in three different Africa Cup Nations tournament. Then finally the big dream became reality; representing Ghana at the world Cup stage.
In 2006 and 2014, Michael Essien played at the World Cup stage for his beloved country, Ghana.
However, his career at Chelsea took a break when he was loaned to Real Madrid in 2012 to 2013.
After he ended his long held contract with Chelsea which lasted for 9 years, he proceeded to AC Milan. He was with AC Milan just a year.
The interesting fact worth noting is that, Essien has been consistent in his career as a footballer. Since 1999 to date he has not stopped playing. His absence on the pitch at times may be due to injuries.
The low turn out of Essien’s football career began after his exit from Chelsea.
The once vibrant Chelsea footballer who caused even grandmums and especially ladies to fall in love with the Chelsea football club was no longer striking in any of the pronounced Europa Leagues.
Where could Michael Essien be? Has he stopped playing football? Or perhaps, he has suffered some serious injuries?
These and many more intriguing questions perplexed Ghanaians.
To feed the wondering minds of funs, though we aren’t seeing him in the popular leagues, Essien is certainly enjoying life in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku. Azerbaijan is situated in Southwestern with great caucus mountain to the north.
But for the coronavirus, he would be busy on pitch of Sabail FK. Sabail FK is an Azerbaijan football club based in Baku. The club participate in the Azerbaijan Premier League.
Considering a footballer with such a remarkable experience, Essien has been additionally offered a job as one of the coaches for the Sabail FK U-19 team.
For the records Michael Essien started playing football in Ghana, playing for Liberty Professional for a year ie 1998-1999.
