Over the years, the Bundesliga has been blessed with an abundance of the best African footballing talent. With the continent’s showpiece tournament – the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations – currently in full flow, several Germany-based stars are going for glory in Gabon.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – Gabon
Despite scoring both of Gabon’s goals, further demonstrating why he is still the Bundesliga’s top-scorer with 16 goals to his name this season, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was forced into an early return to Dortmund with the host nation knocked out after the group stage. That will not necessarily be bad news for BVB, however.
Currently in his fourth season with Dortmund, the 2015 African Player of the Year has been described as “one of the best footballers around in world football today” by Gabon coach Jose Antonio Camacho. Fans of the Yellow-Blacks – who have witnessed their striking hero register 70 Bundesliga goals in 111 appearances – emphatically agree.
Salomon Kalou – Cote d’Ivoire
Salomon Kalou has also been in fine form since returning from a back problem in October. The former Chelsea FC and LOSC Lille man opened his account for the season with a superb hat-trick against Borussia Mönchengladbach on Matchday 10, before netting further goals against VfL Wolfsburg (Matchday 13) and SV Darmstadt 98 (Matchday 16). Kalou also suffered early exit from the African tournament after his country Cote d’Ivoire failed to win a single game in the competition.
Anthony Yeboah – Ghana
As many a seasoned Bundesliga fan will attest, African forwards showing fantastic form in front of goal is not a new phenomenon in German football. During his time with Eintracht Frankfurt, Ghana’s Anthony Yeboah scored 68 times in 123 games in Germany’s top flight. In successive seasons in the 1990s, the striker shared the Torjägerkanone, awarded to the Bundesliga’s top marksman. Such was Yeboah’s impression at the club that he even has a house in Frankfurt named after him: The building in question, which bears his face along with a message promoting peaceful co-existance, has become a symbol for tolerance.
“I was like a king in Frankfurt; I was very successful and before every game I promised my teammates that I would score two goals,” Yeboah once said. The Ghanaian great subsequently raised his Bundesliga tally to 96 goals while at Hamburger SV, a target as yet unequalled by an African player.
Jay-Jay Okocha – Nigeria
Yeboah’s spell at Eintracht coincided with that of another African who lit up the league with the Eagles, Bundesliga ambassador and a player described as one of the finest the continent has ever produced: attacking midfielder Jay-Jay Okocha. Of the many memorable moments in the Nigerian’s German sojourn, his 1993 Goal of the Year scored against Karlsruher SC springs to mind, the attacking midfielder mesmerising an opposing defence before beating a baffled Oliver Kahn. “I kicked off my career as an 18-year-old, but it was at Frankfurt that I became a man,” Okocha would later disclose. The phrase ‘to do an Okocha’ quickly became an intrinsic part of German football’s vernacular.
Sunday Oliseh – Nigeria
Okocha’s compatriot and fellow Bundesliga ambassador, Sunday Oliseh, enjoyed Africa Cup of Nations and Olympic Games success with Nigeria and – aside from spells at 1. FC Köln and VfL Bochum – was a midfielder in the Dortmund team that won the Bundeliga in 2002. Both Okocha and Oliseh took part in the StarTimes & Bundesliga Legends Tour shortly before Christmas, promoting the German top flight and its official broadcaster in Lagos (Nigeria), Accra (Ghana) and Nairobi (Kenya).
Samuel Kuffour – Ghana
When it comes to footballing success on German soil, no African player can compare with the defensive colossus who was Samuel Kuffour. Another tremendous talent to emerge from Ghana,‘Sammy,’ as he was familiarly known, won the Bundesliga on six occasions with FC Bayern München, collecting 16 titles in all during eleven seasons with the Bavarian giants.
How Bundesliga represented in AFCON?
Of the five Bundesliga clubs with representatives at this year’s AFCON, FC Schalke 04 boasted the most players at the tournament with Algeria’s Nabil Bentaleb and Ghanaian duo Abdul Rahman Baba (who suffered a knee injury in the Black Stars’ opening game) and Bernard Tekpetey taking part. SV Werder Bremen – whose former coach Otto Rehhagel fielded the first African player in the Bundesliga in Ibrahim Sunday back in 1976 – are represented in Gabon by Mali’s Sambou Yatabare, while FC Ingolstadt 04 fans will be willing their defender Marcel Tisserand success with DR Congo.
Winning this year’s Africa Cup of Nations would be a remarkable achievement and one which any of the aforementioned players would be happy to share with their club on returning to Germany when the tournament concludes on 5 February. As the competition progresses, we are reminded of the countless Africans who continue to light up the Bundesliga. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, currently in his third season in Gelsenkirchen, has played a key role for injury-hit Schalke this term, while Naby Keita has proved one of the signings of the season at RB Leipzig, channelling the spirit of Okocha et al with some mesmerising displays in the heart of their midfield.
Players like Leon Balogun (1. FSV Mainz 05 & Nigeria), Ibrahima Traore (Borussia Mönchengladbach & Guinea) and Änis Ben-Hatira (SV Darmstadt 98 & Tunisia) also continue to play integral roles at their respective clubs, demonstrating why stars from the African continent are so highly regarded in Germany’s top flight.
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