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Michael Essien
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Image:Michael Essien.jpg thumb|Image © http://soccer-europe.com
'''Michael Essien''' (born
December 3 1982) is a
Ghanaian
football (soccer) football player. He currently plays for
Chelsea F.C. in
England.
He began his career in a local club in his native Ghana, called Liberty Professionals. He broke through when he played in the
Football Under-17 World Championship Under-17 World Cup in 1999 in
New Zealand. This led to considerable attention from European scouts.
In July 1999,
SC Bastia Bastia, a club from
Corsica, signed Essien. At Bastia, he was not very regular, playing at right back, left back and central defense. Then because of an injury to one of his teammates, he was given a temporary opportunity to play in central midfield. Essien played very well in this role. In 2001, even though he was one of the youngest players in the tournament, he took part in the
Football World Youth Championship World Youth Championship in
Argentina, and performed exceptionally well. He made his
Ghana national football team Ghana senior debut in the
2002 African Nations Cup.
Soon he was compared to Frenchman
Patrick Vieira because of his ability to go from box to box. In 2002/2003 season he brought Bastia into the
UEFA Cup. He scored 6 goals that season. He became physically stronger and a harder tackler. Soon
Paris Saint-Germain,
Olympique Lyonnais Lyon and
Olympique de Marseille Marseille made offers for him. He was not only popular in
France, but also in
England. Both major
Merseyside teams,
Liverpool F.C. Liverpool and
Everton F.C. Everton, made offers for him.
PSG made the best offer and Bastia accepted it, but Essien rejected it, and moved to Lyon. At Lyon, Essien played more defensive midfield, featuring regularly in the Lyon team that won the third of their current string of four consecutive
Ligue 1 titles.
In August 2005, Essien declared that he would "go on strike" against Lyon because of the club's refusal to transfer him to English Premiership champions
Chelsea F.C. Chelsea. It was announced on
14 August that Lyon and Chelsea had agreed a £26m fee for the Ghanaian, finally ending one of the longest running transfer sagas in recent English football history.
The
Transfer (football) transfer went through on
19 August, purportedly for a slightly reduced fee of £24.4m, nevertheless breaking Chelsea's previous record transfer fee, which they achieved the previous season by paying £24m for
Olympique Marseille's
Didier Drogba. He made his debut against
Arsenal F.C. Arsenal on
August 21, wearing the number 5 on his shirt. He has already seemingly cemented his place in
José Mourinho's side, starting the majority of the league games since his debut. He got an assist in his full debut against
West Bromwich Albion F.C. West Bromwich Albion, and he replaced the injured
Claude Makélélé in the defensive midfield role against
Sunderland A.F.C. Sunderland in the 2-0 win on September 10, 2005. The midfield of Chelsea looks to have been strengthened by the powerful, athletic Essien, who could well form the Chelsea midfield with Frank Lampard for the next five or more years. On
15 December, he was handed a 2-match ban by
UEFA for a controversial tackle on
Dietmar Hamann.
External links
-
BBC profile
-
Tackle incident
Category:1982 births Essien, Michael
Category:Living people Essien, Michael
Category:Chelsea F.C. players Essien, Michael
Category:Ghanaian footballers Essien, Michael
Category:Olympique Lyonnais players Essien, Michael
Category:Football (soccer) midfielders Essien, Michael
de:Michael Essien
fr:Michael Essien
ko:미카엘 �시앙
nl:Michael Essien
ja:マイケル・エッシェン
fi:Michael Essien
sv:Michael Essien
zh:艾辛
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