Anthony Yeboah popularly known as Tony Yeboah is a Ghanaian former professional footballer who played as a striker from 1981 to 2002.
He is considered one of the most prominent and prolific goal scorers in Ghanaian and African football history and gained a reputation for scoring spectacular goals which often featured in Goal of the Month or Goal of the Season competitions, often celebrated by wagging his index finger towards the crowd.
He Played for Eintracht Frankfurt, Leeds united, Hamburger SV and Al-Ittihad.
Tony started as a colts player with Kotoko Babies, when he was 12 years old and a primary school pupil. During this period, he exhibited exceptional skills and gained promotion to the Under-20 side of Kotoko. While with the Kotoko Under-20 side, three of his colleagues were promoted to join the regular side of Kumasi Asante Kotoko.
He became down-hearted and left the Kotoko Under-20 team and joined the Omnibus Services Authority (OSA) football club, a division three side. After one year, Tony left OSA and joined Neoplan Stars. He was instrumental in the club’s qualification to Division One.
However, after just a year in the elite division, Neoplan Stars was relegated to the second division. His aggression and knack for great goals caught the attention of top football administrators at the time.
Alhaji Sheikh of Kumasi Cornerstone expressed interest in youthful Tony and signed him on, together with Frimpong Manso (former Kotoko captain and current assistant coach of the Porcupine Warriors) and Thomas Boakye (Zion Train, another former player of Asante Kotoko), to play for Corners. While with Corners, Tony Yeboah was invited to the national team, the Black Stars in 1984.
Tony’s career started blooming and he exhibited some gallantry by ensuring Corners’ qualification to the West African Football Union (WAFU) competition in 1986. It was in the same year that Tony emerged the top goal scorer in the local league.
Tony’s career started blooming and he exhibited some gallantry by ensuring Corners’ qualification to the West African Football Union (WAFU) competition in 1986. It was in the same year that Tony emerged the top goal scorer in the local league.
According to Tony, he was interested in playing for Kotoko but wondered how he could gain regular position in the team, especially with the presence of Opoku Nti (Lord Zico) and Anane Kobo, who both loved to don the No 10 jersey, which was Tony’s favourite position too. After pondering over the offers, he opted for Okwahu United FC, where he played for two years, (1986 to 1988).
It was while he was with Okwahu that Anthony Yeboah, then a regular player in the senior national team, the Black Stars, got an offer to play some justifiers in Germany. He said his glittering performance in one of the matches he played in the World Cup qualifying series against Zambia when he scored the only goal of the match, had been the turning point in his life.
Incidentally, the man who took Tony to Germany was not a soccer enthusiast but a boxing consultant then working for the Ghana Boxing Association. The German got attracted to Tony by his heavily-built physique and goal-scoring prowess.
He said when they got to Germany, the man handed him over to another friend, who was into football. This man, according to Tony, took him round to play a series of justifiers. He was finally signed on by Saarbrucken, a division two side. Tony played for Saarbrucken for two years (1988 to 1990), then moved to Frankfurt.
Tony said it was in one of the keenly contested games Saarbrucken played against Frankfurt, in a play-off that the latter team spotted him.
Tony Yeboah joined Frankfurt in 1990 for five years and had a major impact. He is still loved by the fans and during his time at Eintracht Frankfurt became the first African team captain in Bundesliga history. He also won the league’s golden boot twice in 1993 and 1994.
Anthony Yeboah moved to Leeds United from Eintracht Frankfurt in January 1995 for £3.4 million but, despite showing glimmers of his scoring prowess in his first season, it was in the early throes of the 1995-96 season that he leapt into the limelight.
Playing against Liverpool, the club he supported growing up in the Ghanaian city of Kumasi, Yeboah cemented his already growing cult hero status at Elland Road with a truly explosive effort. A goal of real beauty, though not in the tiki-taka sense, it was technique and raw power bundled into a ferocious package. From Rod Wallace’s headed knockdown, Yeboah unleashed a shot that flew past David James, thundered against the crossbar and over the line, before springing back up into the roof of the net.
A month later he would claim a second spectacular strike as he danced through Wimbledon’s defence on his way to a match-winning hat-trick, but for Yeboah, there was one goal that stood out as his greatest in English football.
“I have so many happy memories of playing in the Premier League, but the goal against Liverpool immediately springs to mind,”
His volley against Liverpool and his strike versus Wimbledon in the 1995–96 season were among his most notable goals, and he was a regular feature in Goal of the Month in the Premier League. The goal against Wimbledon was awarded Goal of the Season in 1995–96.
An iconic Premier League goal was not to be enough to secure Yeboah’s long-term future in the division, however, as a change of manager at Leeds United — George Graham replaced Howard Wilkinson in September 1996 — brought discord. Graham and Yeboah’s relationship was a train wreck and the striker, who had been a top scorer in the Bundesliga just three years earlier, found himself benched and unable to convince the Scot of his worth.
The man behind the goal played just 47 Premier League games scoring 24 goals but his legend lived on long after he departed English football.
Yeboah was sold to Hamburger SV in September 1997, having played just six times under Graham. He spent four years at Hamburger SV — though never rediscovered the Midas scoring touch of his first spell in Germany — before ending his career in the Middle East with Qatari club Al-Ittihad.
Anthony Yeboah was a member of Ghana’s national team for over ten years and represented his country at three Africa Cup of Nations during the 1990s scoring 29 goals in 59 appearances for Ghana.
Source: ghanaianmuseum.com
