Michael Essien got the full hate treatment on missing the 2006 Nations Cup but his stunning performances has silenced the howls of derision and earned him the accolade as the BBC’s African Footballer of the year - By Mikel Adjei.

Hindsight being such a wonderful thing, it does no harm to wind the clock eleven months back and relive the torrent of abuse and condemnation that newly crowned BBC African Football of the Year Michael Essien had to cope with.

Essien’s crime was to have missed the 2006 Nations Cup in Egypt after he was banished to six weeks on the sidelines following a crunching tackle on him by West Ham’s Nigel Reo-Coker on New Year’s Day.

Ghana’s early elimination from the Nations Cup and his return from injury just a day after that against Liverpool looking all fresh and strong turned him into public enemy number one.

Emotions stirred by football change as fast as alcohol fuelled behaviour. Still, few of Ghana’s outraged fans would have expected that the vile response to Essien’s absence from the nations cup would vanish so soon.

Not everyone has performed a U-turn since Essien was wrongfully accused of turning his back on the nation by feigning injury. The majority, however, have softened their stance towards the player largely on the back of his stirring displays not only for Chelsea but also for Ghana at the 2006 world cup in Germany.

Somehow he has managed to put the misery of Egypt 2006 behind him in fantastic fashion and underline once again his amazing mental strength.

And last Friday January 5th when the BBC world service
for Africa organized a live poll to determine the continent’s best player, the response of Ghanaians was immense and the biggest indicator of how well he has risen from the ashes of his Egypt burns.

JoyFM made it clear that if you were texting, make sure you did for Essien, TV3 said it so many times by 4pm when the poll was being held, literally the whole of Ghana was aware that they could influence the choice of Essien as the BBC’s Africa player of the year.

Now even the most strident of Essien haters must accept that he is not only one of the best midfielders in the world but also that he is proving a fine, fine ambassador for Ghana and selling the Nation in a manner that all those expensive tour Ghana campaigns will struggle to do.

He plays with a resilience and energy that makes him watchable and his ability to play anywhere in defence or midfield is increasingly making him one of the most respected footballers around.

While national hostility is not a good thing, Essien’s experience as the casualty of Ghana’s poor nations cup campaign in Egypt has had an upshot. With everyone around him including his mum getting a taste of the treatment, it has somehow hastened the rise of a talent who in the past seemed willing to underestimate the importance of the nation Ghana.

In April 2006 when I traveled with a TV3 crew to interview for the first time for television in Ghana, he looked genuinely worried by the torment of abuse that he received then.

He was not playing particularly well but also lurking at the back of his mind was the knowledge acquired through hours spent behind the internet that his countrymen considered him uninterested in the Black Stars.

The accusation he said hurt but at that time, he knew full proof that there was a massive opportunity to win back the support and confidence of the nation.

“I know there are many people in Ghana who enjoying criticising me but there is nothing I can do but show up and play well for the national team in Germany”, he told me in London.

And true to his word he utilized the world cup to full effect, putting in a string of displays that have banished talk of him not being committed to Ghana and elevated him from public enemy number one to the country’s most loved footballer over the last year.

The BBC award is in many ways credit to Essien’s immense mental strength and consistency. Few players would have survived the torrent of abuse that came his way and while there were signs that it had gotten to him he seemed to have learnt his lessons well.

For instance when in the past, he was reluctant to give media interviews, he drove to the Bush House base of the BBC African Service to clarify himself in the midst of the Nations Cup furore.

He released a statement at that time committing himself to the nation and went on a media and public relations blitz that was all intended at winning back the confidence and trust of a nation.

The BBC Award now means that there will be many within the African game who will be betting on him take the coveted CAF version of the same award when Ghana plays host to that at the Accra International Conference Center on March 1st 2006.

If he nips that there will be few complaints but that will be a closer race than the BBC award which saw him sweep 60 per cent of the votes.

Samuel Eto’o Fills’ performance for Barcelona on their way to clinching the European champions league title and his emergence as the top scorer in the Spanish La Liga makes him a strong contender for a fourth straight title.

Didier Drogba’s role in Ivory Coast’s second place finish at the African Cup of Nations and subsequent goals for Chelsea this season makes him any people’s favourite.

Yet in Ghana on home soil for the locals, there will be only one favourite. It will be nice if there will be another Ghanaian name alongside Abedi Pele as the winner of that prestigious award.

He could win it but only if those tasked with selecting the continent’s best player don’t get sucked in by goals is everything mantra in football.


Credit: Mikel Adjei (Games)