Awudu Issaka has acknowledged that he was in awe the first time he saw Christian Atsu play at the academy level. Issaka mentioned that facing the ex-Chelsea star made him give up playing football in Ghana.
The former Black Starlet player who took the world by storm with his incredible footwork on the pitch at the U-17 World tournament staged in Ecuador, claims that Christian Atsu, a player with similar characteristics to his own, was discovered by the late Ghanaian coach Sam Ardy.
“Atsu did not play for my team but he has been a blessing to a lot of people. I got to know Atsu through Sam Arday while in Europe. Sam Arday called and told me we’ve gotten a player of my calibre in the person of Atsu.
When I arrived in Ghana, I watched him and realized his potential,” he said as quoted by Pak MediaGh. He continued by describing how the late Atsu and Black Stars defender Harisson Afful shocked him by retiring him from football shortly after he had just returned from Europe.
“After my career in Europe, I came to Ghana, we played a game with Feyenoord, a team coached by Sam Arday at the time, in fact, that was the first time I played against Atsu and Harrison Afful. Truth be told, the two players gave me a tough time, they didn’t allow me to enjoy the game and that is why I lost interest in playing in Ghana.”
Meanwhile, former journalist of the Year award winner Saddick Adams aka Sports Obama has said Christian Atsu instructed him and other journalists privy to his sense of philanthropism not to make any of his charitable endeavours public, which is why they rarely publicized them.
He mentioned this when he took his turn to pay tribute to the former Ghanaian international who lost his life in the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria.
Obviously, Obama made this known in reaction to people’s assertion that people are praising Atsu after he died but never spoke about his good deeds when he was alive.
“People are asking why we didn’t talk about his charity works when he was alive. We would have loved to talk about it but when you do, he will text you and say, Alhaji me I don’t like that ohh. Lets keep it private.”
“What people are saying about him are nothing but the truth, just that he wanted them to be private. The last time he left Ghana, I saw him briefly a day before at the airport and I was supposed to see him the day he was leaving on the 22nd of July 2022 but I forgot I had a meeting with him,” Saddick Adams stated.
Source – Tru News Report
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