"I am more than a missed free kick"

Ahmed Barusso writes about the singular incident that changed his career forever

By Ahmed Apimah Barusso and Godfred Akoto Boafo

I am still playing football. Most people in Ghana could care less. I am 35 years old and my best days are behind me. I admit that. But I love this game too much to give it up. I have endured too much to just walk away when I can still enjoy a competitive game.

Imagine being a child in Dansoman, a large suburb of Accra chasing pick up games in the streets. You love the game and want to play. However the game is only for talented kids. The only ones who get picked for matches are your friends with the feathery touches and fancy flicks. Nobody wants the short, stout kid with a heavy touch and no technique.

Shaolin Park. Alive Park. Bibiba Park. Dansoman 1&2 School Park. Nobody wants this kid on their playground.

Only this kid does not give up. He loves the game too much. It matters too much to just walk away and focus on the daily tedium of school and house chores. So he outworks everyone. There is no slow day in his life. Everyday is a mission to get picked at the playground. The kid grows. Mentally. And physically.

Now he gets picked. Not because he has suddenly become talented. But because he has become useful on the pitch. He is strong for his age and carries thunder in his boots. Goalkeepers tremble when this kid has the ball at his feet. He is bigger than most kids. He knows why he gets picked. They whisper it but he does not care. He is finally on the park. That is all that matters.

I am used to rejection. Derision. Being an after thought . I like a quote from Ben Stein I discovered late in life.

“It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated…it is finished when it surrenders.

It represents my path. I have never surrendered a day in my life. Everything I have achieved in my football career I have earned. Nothing has ever been gifted to me.

My name is Ekow. How I became Ahmed Apimah Barusso is a mirror of my path.

Ekow was the neighbourhood kid nobody picked until he grew tall and strong. He was the same kid colt teams looked at and felt was an aberration to their idea of how and what a footballer should look like and play. Liberty Professionals, my community team offered me a trial. The head coach did not even bother to look me over. He told me in no uncertain terms. I would never make it as a professional footballer.

After so many rejections, it was easy to just give up and walk away. But persistence has a way of cracking rocks. Thank God for Abedi Pele.

Where others say a raw, physical specimen, he saw an alternative to the accepted mould. His newly formed team Nania FC would be my saving grace and I would give him my all. He gave me a chance to learn when others closed doors.

He completed my evolution. To become a man, Ekow had to give way for Ahmed Barusso. That was just the start of my journey.

I agreed to share this because for years my career has been associated with one free kick. I rarely talk about that day. I feel differently today.

February 7, 2008. Ghana vs Cameroon. It is the semi finals of the AFCON. It is in Accra and 40,000 people are packed into the stadium.

Ghana is down a goal and late into the game, coach Claude Leroy signals to me . I am going in. It would be my first appearance at the tournament and I am wracked with nervous tension. It is four minutes of injury time but to me, it means the world. An opportunity to show I have come full circle.

Then came the FREE KICK. I had enjoyed two touches of the ball before the incident. As soon as the referee blew the whistle in that position, all my team mates knew it would be me. Recounting it still makes me nervous because it was such a big moment. I had a well earned reputation for scoring free kicks within that range. I had the most powerful shot and fairly decent technique. Standing behind that ball as the seconds ticked away, with the emotions of millions bound to the single kick of a ball was a different feeling. On the outside I looked calm. On the inside I was calling on every sinew I had just to stay on my feet.

I’ll get back to the free kick.

There are six divisions in Italian football. I have played in all of them . Manfredonia was my first club as a professional in Europe. Most people have and will never hear of this team. It was in the amateur leagues. That means bottom rung, poor pay, horrible facilities and mostly part time. And it was as far as most thought I would make it.

Most people in my Dansoman community did not even know I was in Europe to play football. The story was, I had found a way to get to Europe with the aim of landing a job. Maybe as a factory hand or something. Football? Nah.They were fine with that.

I wasn’t.

Manfredonia would earn a promotion every season of my three year stay and at every level I realised something. I was made for this. I was playing football at a good level. Sure. There were no glitzy stadiums or fancy mixed zone interviews. We made no money but this was not the end most thought I was destined for. A lot of young footballers break at this point. After all this is not what they signed up for. Long cold nights playing infront of less than a thousand people in rickety stadiums is nobody’s dream. They either accept their fate and stop working or they become full time amateur players.

Not me. I have always wanted more even though I had very little to work with. My desire to succeed amidst every challenge dragged me through.

Rimini in the Serie B was the next staging point in my career. That is where I felt a twinge of accomplishment. Bigger stadiums, better players and bit of money. And I started like a man on a mission. I had a point to prove and I was not going to waste any time doing that. The greatest Italian team of all had arrived in the division with all their superstar players after Calciopoli . Juventus. An opportunity to test myself.

Quite the ride. This was different from the life at Manfredonia’s Stadia Miramare. This was box office. Buffon. Del Piero. Camoranesi. Trezeguet. Marchisio. Chiellini.

First proper game of my life. September 9,2006. The game ended 1-1. I was the official man of the match.

Nine matches into that season , I broke my tibia in a game at Crotone. Nine matches. Three man of the match awards. Newspapers suddenly writing about me. All gone with one bad tackle. I have never experienced so much pain in my life. It would take me out of football for ten months. Those were ten dark months filled with anxiety, bouts of self pity and maybe what we can call depression. Would I even have a club after my recovery? I felt victimised. I didn’t know by whom but it is how I felt. It is also the moment I found strength in my faith. I am Christian. Born and raised . I had never felt the need to fall back on that but my bible is what saw me through those dark moments.

After ten months I was back. I carry a permanent reminder of that injury. I have a very visible crater in my right leg. It is where the bone stuck out. I cannot say I returned better than previously but I must have done something right because every major Serie A club came calling. Milan. Inter. AS Roma. I chose Roma. My journey from the pits to the top of Olympus was complete.

Which brings me back to that free kick. I think about my family a lot. My community too. They moulded me. I have never forgotten. For that game I bought 300 tickets to be handed out to residents of Dansoman who wanted to watch the game. They were all there. My family. All part of the 40,000 baying fans.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that ball. I had done it several times before at club level and also during training with the national team. It is the reason why in a storied team of established superstars, a rookie with only three minutes of competitive action was handed the greatest responsibility, in the most important match of Ghana’s history.They did not make a mistake in handing that opportunity to me.

I missed.

Nobody felt the pain of that miss more than me. Nobody felt the disappointment better than I did. The frustration. I knew what that miss meant. Shattered dreams. But even worse-lifetime villainy. Not just for myself, but for my family.

I have since taken that free kick a thousand times in my head . It makes no difference. But it hurts when it is questioned why I was the one behind the ball. It is questioned whether I even deserved to be a part of that team. I say I did. I earned it like nobody else did. I wasn’t even supposed to be a footballer.

In the years past I have grown impervious to the jibes I get at social gatherings and other places. I was almost thrown out of a marriage ceremony after I was introduced as the guy who missed THE free kick. The jokes about the football still being in space and all that. I have never been asked about what life was like at all the other clubs I played for. I am not bitter. I am at peace

To many I did not exist after that moment. Nothing else I did in my career mattered. I will always be that guy who gave a nation hope for ten seconds and broke its collective heart for a lifetime.

I do not know who will read this entry . But for those who do, I hope you leave with a story of a person who never gave up in adversity and rose above all odds to matter to a nation if even for a few seconds.

Never give up. Your ending might be better than mine.

Thank you for reading our newsletter. Our next chapter will focus on onetime prodigy Christian Saba and what happened to his Bayern Munich dream.