Ghanaian football legend Michael Essien says the Black Stars hardly lose games anytime he’s on the pitch with the team against the Super Eagles.
The former Chelsea star has played twice against Nigeria without losing the game.
Recall that he scored the opening goal as Ghana defeated Nigeria 2-1 in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations.
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In an interview with Joy Sports, Essien noted that he never lost against the Super Eagles.
“My favourite game will be against Nigeria in the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations. I never lost against Nigeria while on the pitch,” he stated proudly.
“I played in the friendly in London. I did not play in the match at the 2006 AFCON. If I’m on the pitch, we don’t lose. We were losing (referring to the 2008 AFCON match) and I scored.”
7 Comments
The German World Cup winner, Berti Vogts was our coach at that 2008 Nations Cup tournament where Ghana playing with nine players amazingly came back from a goal down to defeat us by 2-1, if my memory is correct. And this despite Mr. Vogts having a plethora of quality players at his disposal at that tournament.
Not all that glitters is gold!
That Berti was a world cup winner does not mean he was the best coach our money could buy.
There are many world cup winners in the world of football today. Most of them ARE NOT capable coaches.
With a better coach in the dugout for Nigeria, Michael Essien would have suffered defeat that day.
Ghana should’ve finished that 2008 game with 7 men. They didn’t play football, they were playing Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Anthony Annan poked Mikel in the eye just in front of the referee. Also, Yakubu Ayeigbeni’s uselessness started from that game.
@ pompei, my buddy, your point is well-taken.
But remember, he won The World Cup as a player and then went on to coach Germany to Euro Cup triumph in England in 1996.
Let’s be honest, some fans here will give an arm and a leg to get a coach with such pedigree to coach our national team today.
It is just that things don’t always pan out the way we think they will.
Tony, you spoke well.
Things don’t always pan out the way we think. What we desire does not always come to pass. But should we now settle for mediocrity because of that?
Should we settle for an inferior coach, because success is not guaranteed from a better coach?
Success is NEVER GUARANTEED. All we can do is try to position ourselves in such a way that the likelihood of success is maximized.
In Berti’s defense, he had to work with the NFF. We all know how difficult that is. Perhaps with better administrators, Berti would have had a better run.
We usually have the players to achieve greatness. This has been the case for decades. Today, in the Premier League game between Fulham and Nottingham Forest, Nigeria had 4 players on the pitch! How many African countries have that? 4 players on the pitch in a Premier League game! We have players. They may not be the best in the world, but they are good enough to make a mark if they had a good tactician working with them.
Just look at the Afcon title we just lost to CIV. With a better tactician, that cup had Nigeria’s name written all over it. The opportunity cost of not having good tacticians is too great. Too many trophies lost, failing to qualify for tournaments, dropping in FIFA rankings due to poor results. If we had the attitude of going for the best coaches always, Nigeria would be in a much better place in world football right now.
Nigeria should be competing with clubs like Man City, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, for coaches.
The coaches that the elite clubs in world football are chasing, these are the coaches Nigeria should be chasing as well. E GET WHY.
If Barca offer a coach $10 million, we should be ready to beat that offer. In fact, we should double it, just to ensure that we get the services of that coach.
Get a solid coach, then invite only the BEST OF THE BEST to the SE.
Do these 2 things, and we will win more Afcon trophies, we will qualify for world cups, and we will be contenders to actually win the world cup.
Of course success is never guaranteed
But the chances of success are maximized when we do the work, and are ready to invest in success.
I’m not being unrealistic here. The things we desire are achievable. How badly do we want it? That is the million dollar question.
@pompei, you happen to be right.
We have the resources, from a natural and financial point of view, it is just that we don’t have the right people at the helm managing those resources.
It is very unfortunate.