In the summer of 2005, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho paid Lyon £24.4 million for Michael Essien. It was Chelsea's biggest signing of the window and, at the time, one of the most expensive midfield transfers in European football. Lyon were reluctant to sell. Mourinho was persistent. Chelsea got eight and a half years of one of the most complete midfielders English football has seen.
Cape Coast, Bastia, Lyon
He was born on 3 December 1982 in Accra and attended St Augustine's College in Cape Coast. He started his senior career at Liberty Professionals in Accra before moving to France in 2000 to join Bastia, where he spent three seasons. The step up to Lyon in 2003 was the one that changed his trajectory. He won back-to-back Ligue 1 titles in 2003-04 and 2004-05 and was named Ligue 1 Player of the Year in 2005. Mourinho had been watching closely.
What he did at Chelsea
At Chelsea, Essien became one of the most complete midfielders in England. He could defend, attack, tackle and score, all at the level required for a club fighting for major trophies every season. His volley against Arsenal in 2006, a half-volley from outside the box that beat the goalkeeper before he could move, remains one of the most replayed goals from the mid-2000s Premier League. He won three league titles, three FA Cups, the League Cup and, in Munich in 2012, the UEFA Champions League. He left in January 2014 after eight and a half years, which at a time when loyalty was already becoming rare, made him unusual.
The Black Stars
He was capped more than 50 times for Ghana and was central to the 2006 World Cup squad, the country's first-ever appearance at the tournament. The Black Stars reached the round of 16. Essien's influence was significant enough that his absence through injury in 2010 was widely discussed as a genuine factor in a campaign that nearly reached the semi-finals without him.
Few Ghanaian footballers have operated at the level Essien operated at, for as long as he sustained it. Premier League titles, Ligue 1 Player of the Year, Champions League winner: the record speaks for itself, and Ghana does not always speak for it loudly enough.
