Some footballers do a complete 360 by returning to play for their boyhood clubs after traveling and playing for different clubs across the globe.
Others even make it a personal mission to come back to where it all started for them.
Players return to their home countries after successful careers and exploits in Europe, South America, Asia, and even now the Middle East.
That’s no different in Ghana, where the nation’s biggest names in football in recent years have made the trip back home to play in the Ghana Premier League.
Here at Pulse Ghana, we look at the top 5 Ghanaian players who made that return trip to play in the nation’s top flight.
5 Players who returned
1.Sulley Ali Muntari
Ghana legend Sulley Ali Muntari, a 2010 UEFA Champions League winner with Italian side Inter Milan returned to play for Accra Hearts of Oak in 2022. Muntari had been away from professional football for three years before he joined the Phobians.
He made his debut in the Accra derby which Hearts of Oak lost by a lone goal to city rivals, Accra Great Olympics.
2.Emmanuel Agyeman Badu
Emmanuel Agyeman Badu was part of the Black Satellites squad that won the 2009 Under-20 World Cup in Brazil. He later explored Europe playing mainly in the Italian Seria A playing for Udinese Calcio and Hellas Verona.
Agyemang-Badu returned to play for Accra Great Olympics at the start of the 2022/23 season and won the GHALCA tournament but exited the club after just five months. He was allegedly cherry-picking matches to feature in.
The former Ghana international later accused club CEO Oluboi Commodore of directing former coach Yaw Preko not to play him in certain league games.
3.Asamoah Gyan
Africa’s all-time leading scorer at the FIFA World Cup, Asamoah Gyan, played for Modena and Udinese in Italy, French side Stade Rennes, and moved to Sunderland in the English Premier League, before journeying across Turkey, Asia, and the Middle East.
As a proper journeyman, Baby Jet made a full 360 when he came back to the Ghana Premier League.
Gyan, who is Ghana’s top scorer, started at Liberty Professionals but returned to play for Legon Cities.
4.Richard Kingson
Richard Kingson spent almost a decade in Turkey playing for Galatasaray, Antalyaspor, and other Turkish clubs. Kingson was Black Stars’ first-choice goalkeeper for about a decade as well.
He was in post during the nation’s first FIFA World Cup in Germany in 2006, and an impressive display saw him play for Birmingham, Wigan, and Blackpool in England.
He made a quick stop in Cyprus and then returned to Turkey.
Olele, as he’s affectionately called, made a proper full-circle moment when he returned home to play for Accra Great Olympics where he first started in the mid-90s.
5.Laryea Kingston
Laryea Kingston’s career was more of a back-and-forth. He started at Great Olympics, moved to Al-Ittihad in Libya for a short loan, and then was signed by Hearts of Oak.
Kingston played for Vitesse in the Netherlands, Scottish club Hearts of Midlothian, and some other teams in Russia, Israel, and the USA.
He returned to play in the Ghana Premier League for Accra Hearts of Oak in 2012.
Pulse
