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Michael Essien (born December 3 1982) is a Ghanaian football player. He currently plays for Chelsea F.C. in England. He is an all-action box-to-box central midfielder and plays as a deep-lying playmaker for Ghana.

Born in Accra, Essien began his career in a local club in his native Ghana, called Liberty Professionals. He broke through when he played in the Under-17 World Cup in 1999 in New Zealand. This led to considerable attention from European scouts.

In July 1999, French club SC Bastia 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 World Youth Championship in Argentina, and performed exceptionally well. He made his 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 six goals that season. He became physically stronger and a harder tackler. Soon Paris Saint-Germain, Olympique Lyonnais and Olympique de Marseille made offers for him. He was not only popular in France, but also in England. Both major Merseyside teams, Liverpool F.C. and Everton F.C., 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 and fourth of their current string of five 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.. 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. Essien is now Chelsea's second most expensive signing after the club signed Ukraine forward and captain Andriy Shevchenko from A.C. Milan on 22 May, 2006.

The 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. 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., and he replaced the injured Claude Makélélé in the defensive midfield role against Sunderland A.F.C. 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, which resulted in his suspension from Chelsea's UEFA Champions League second round tie with eventual European champions F.C. Barcelona, which Chelsea lost 3-2 on aggregate. Essien has apologised to Hamann for the challenge (which Hamann has accepted), and insists that while he desires to be perceived as a player who 'unsettles' opponents, he is not a malicious or unsporting player. In January 2006, Essien was himself stretchered off the field, the victim of a poor (and unpunished) challenge from West Ham United captain Nigel Reo-Coker, which sidelined him for three weeks.

Essien scored his first goal for Chelsea in March 2006, in a 2-1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur. His second goal came on 17 April 2006 against Everton. Essien ended his debut season in England with 2 goals for Chelsea, both in the Premier League. However, the arrival of midfielders Michael Ballack from Bayern Munich and John Obi Mikel from F.C. Lyn Oslo in May 2006 means that Essien will face fierce competition to be selected for Chelsea.

His form for Chelsea so far this season, however, has been startling and indicates that not only is he willing to fight for his place but also that he is more than capable of doing so and, perhaps, edging out players previously part of Chelsea's core - such as Claude Makélélé and Frank Lampard. Pundits such as Giles Smith have suggested dropping Lampard, who has been enduring a lean spell in recent months, with Essien filling the void.

On 16 May, 2006, Essien was inserted in the team that represented Ghana at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. He played in the midfield with team captain Stephen Appiah of Fenerbahçe and Sulley Ali Muntari of Udinese. Essien played in Ghana's 0-2 defeat to Italy, 2-0 victory over the Czech Republic, and 2-1 victory over the United States, and helped Ghana become the only African team in the second round of the 2006 World Cup. He was suspended for Ghana's second round match against Brazil, which Ghana lost 0-3.

Upon the team's return to Ghana, Essien said that the team had gained invaluable experience and will be aiming to make the next finals, which will be held in Africa for the first time in the tournament's history at South Africa 2010.

On September 12, Essien http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwMc7nOd-uM&mode=related&search= scored his first UEFA Champions League goal for Chelsea in a 2-0 victory over Werder Bremen of Germany. To date he has a total of 4 goals in competitive games for Chelsea.

A FIFA World Class Midfielder, Essien was on October 12, 2006, nominated for the 2006 FIFA World Player of the Year Award. He was also nominated for the 2005 FIFA World Player of the Year Award. He placed 22nd in 2005. He is currently one of three finalists for African Footballer of the Year.

Honours

;Club

*French Cup with SC Bastia Runner-up: 2002
*French Ligue 1 with Olympique Lyon Winner: 2003/04, 2004/05
*FA Premier League with Chelsea F.C Winner: 2006

;National team

*1999 FIFA U-17 World Championship 3rd Place: 1999
*FIFA World Youth Championship Runner-up: 2001

;Individual
* FIFA World Player of the Year - 22nd 2005, http://www.fifa.com/documents/fifa/events/FWPG06_Shortlist_Men_30_final_E.pdf 2006 Nomination
* Ballon d'Or - http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/europa-poy05.html 22nd 2005, http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/news/Kind=2/newsId=468211.html?cid=rssfeed&att=index 2006 Nomination
* African Footballer of the Year - http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060216/7/62sp.html 3rd 2005
* http://www.cafonline.com/news.php?id=952 CAF's Africa Top 50 Best Players of All-Time - Nomination
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnLGclp1AKY 2005 France Player of the Year Winner
* FIFA Player of the Game: http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/match/template.html?id=26&day=17&month=06&year=2006 2006 Fifa World Cup Ghana vs. Czech Republic
*The Most Expensive Summer Transfer of 2005 from Lyon to Chelsea
*The Most Expensive African Footballer of all-time €38M
*FIFA All-Star Midfielder
*http://www.fifa.com/en/print/article/0,4039,117452,00.html On the Cover of FIFA Magazine May 2006

Quotes

*"The first things that people see about Michael is his energy and tackling, and they classify him as a holding midfielder, a destroyer type of player. What they don't often realise is that he can also be very dangerous going forward. His positioning to receive the ball is very good, and he knows when and where to place a pass." - Former Olympique Lyon and current Glasgow Rangers manager Paul Le Guen on his former player.

*"Essien is a great player. He can play every position in midfield. Where he is perfect in choices. In football, the most difficult thing is to choose well, and in every situation he chooses well. He presses, stays in position, passes long, passes short, first touch, two touches. He controls the pace of the game, fast or slow. He is midfield multifunctional, he is dynamic and strong. The boy has incredible physical power, he is super resistant with great speed and unending tactical abilities." - Chelsea F.C Coach José Mourinho on his midfielder in http://www.fifa.com/documents/fifamagazine/may_06/E/0506-32-49-englisch.pdf May 2006 FIFA Magazine

*FIFA.com says http://www.fifa.com/en/comp/index/0,2442,106037,00.html?comp=CWC&year=2005&articleid=106037 "Essien, Lyon's quietly rampaging buffalo"

*The Guardian says http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,1596316,00.html "Essien: The very model of a modern midfield general"

*Interview in http://www.fifa.com/documents/fifamagazine/may_06/E/0506-32-49-englisch.pdf FIFA Magazine, May 2006(pdf)

External links

*soccerbase|id=24066|name=Michael
*http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/shared/bsp/hi/football/statistics/players/e/essien_211367.stm BBC profile
*http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=351543&cc=4716 Tackle incident http://images.thesun.co.uk/picture/0,,2005560800,00.gif picture, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-5GflaqVTQ video
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnLGclp1AKY Essien wins 2005 France Player of the Year youtube video
*http://www.eurosport.fr/home/pages/v4/l3/s22/playermultimedia_lng3_rub9_spo22_ven21414.shtml Essien's 2005 Lyon - Chelsea Transfer saga video
*http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/player/175524_ESSIEN_Michael.html Fifa 2006 World Cup Profile
*http://www.uefa.com/competitions/UCL/Players/Player=48311/index.html 2006/2007 UEFA Champions League Profile
*http://soccernet.espn.go.com/players/profile?id=9799&cc=5901 ESPN Profile
*http://eurosport.tf1.fr/home/pages/v4/l3/s22/playermultimedia_lng3_rub9_spo22_ven20413.shtml Lyon's 2005 French Championship win video
*http://www.ghanafa.org/ Ghana Football Association - Ghana Football official website
*http://discussions.ghanaweb.com/viewforum.php?f=2/ Ghanaweb Football Forum - Ghana Football Fan Forum
*http://www.eurosport.fr/home/pages/v4/l3/s22/playermultimedia_lng3_rub9_spo22_ven21729.shtml Makalele, Drogba, Essien funny video

Ghana Squad 2006 World
Chelsea FC

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