Anthony Baffoe

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anthony Baffoe
Personnel
birthday May 25, 1965
place of birth Bad Godesberg ,  Germany
position defender
Juniors
Years station
1974-1980 1. FC Ringsdorff-Godesberg
1980-1983 1. FC Cologne
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1983-1985 1. FC Cologne 2 0(0)
1985-1986 Rot-Weiß Oberhausen 33 0(2)
1986-1987 Stuttgart Kickers 19 0(1)
1987-1989 SC Fortuna Cologne 73 (12)
1989-1992 Fortuna Dusseldorf 72 0(4)
1992-1994 FC Metz 60 0(0)
1994-1995 OGC Nice 7 0(0)
1994-1995 OGC Nice B 8 0(0)
1997-1998 Convoy Sun Hei SC
1998-1999 Caracas FC
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
Ghana at least 25 (1)
1 Only league games are given.

Anthony Baffoe (born May 25, 1965 in Bad Godesberg ) is a former Ghanaian soccer player and founder and general secretary of the Ghanaian players' union (Professional Footballers Association of Ghana, Pfag).

Player career

The Ghanaian Anthony Baffoe, son of a diplomat , grew up in Bad Godesberg, today's district of Bonn, where he started with club football at 1. FC Ringsdorff-Godesberg . The sporting talent - the tall Baffoe was also a talented basketball player - was discovered and promoted by Christoph Daum , who was a junior coach at 1. FC Köln at the time. FC coach Rinus Michels finally called the 18-year-old Baffoe in 1983 to the professional team, which was peppered with stars like Toni Schumacher , Pierre Littbarski and Klaus Allofs . After Ibrahim Sunday from Werder Bremen and Etepe Kakoko from VfB Stuttgart, he was the third African footballer to make it into the 1st Bundesliga. Baffoe had started as a technically strong striker in the youth teams and now found his way from the front midfield to the role of a modern right-back, whose dynamic advances and crosses delighted the audience. However, Baffoe was denied the breakthrough at 1. FC Köln. In addition to the DFB foreigner rule valid at the time (Bundesliga clubs were allowed to include a maximum of three foreigners in the squad and use two of them at the same time in competitive games), Baffoe's temporarily unprofessional lifestyle may have played a certain role.

In order to gain match practice, Baffoe switched to Rot-Weiß Oberhausen on loan in 1985 . He celebrated one of his greatest successes in the 1986/87 season with the Stuttgarter Kickers : The second division team sensationally reached the DFB Cup final and lost on June 20, 1987 in the Berlin Olympic Stadium in front of 76,000 spectators after a brilliant battle with 1: 3 against runner-up Hamburger SV . Fans and experts celebrated the performance of Baffoe, who had given his opponents a real puzzle and had prepared the interim 1-0 lead for the "Blues" with an excellent run across the flank. Nevertheless, the new Stuttgart trainer Manfred Krafft waived a further obligation of the "black pearl", as Baffoe was regularly referred to by the media.

He returned to Cologne, where he joined the second-rate Fortuna . Constantly good performances even brought him up for discussion at HSV as heir to club legend Manfred Kaltz . But Baffoe remained loyal to the Rhineland and moved to Bundesliga promoted Fortuna Düsseldorf in the summer of 1989 . Part of the transfer fee, around 200,000 marks, was contributed by Die Toten Hosen , who added a (Fortuna) mark to the entry price during a tour under the motto “A leg for Toni Baffoe”. In 1992 Fortuna Düsseldorf was relegated. Baffoe was identified as one of the culprits and suspended after arguments with trainer Pepi Hickersberger . He then left Germany and played the following years in France ( FC Metz and OGC Nice ). Then Baffoe let his career end in exotic football regions; so he completed a season in Hong Kong with Convoy Sun Hei SC and finally moved in 1998 to the Venezuelan football club FC Caracas . From there he moved to Ghana in 1999, where he joined the first division club Ashanti Gold , which he in turn left in 2001 to go to South Africa . There he played with Ajax Cape Town until 2003 and then returned to Ghana, where he was active with Ashanti Gold up to and including 2006 and then ended his career as a professional footballer at the age of 41.

Overall, Anthony Baffoe played 74 games in the Bundesliga between 1983 and 1992 for 1. FC Cologne and Fortuna Düsseldorf . He scored four goals . Baffoe saw himself as a German footballer with African roots and became known nationwide for his committed, humorous and self-confident manner in relation to racism in football, which corresponded to his offensive footballing skills.

National team

In the Ghanaian national soccer team , Baffoe made his debut on January 13, 1991 against Benin (4-0) in a qualifier for the Africa Cup of Nations the following year. After a flying visit in 1973, this was only his second visit to Ghana. The tragic high point of his selection career was his missed penalty in the penalty shoot-out in the final of the African Cup of Nations in 1992 against Ivory Coast . When the score was 11:10, he was the first captain to compete for the second time on Ghana's side and forgave.

Further career

After finishing his soccer career, Baffoe turned to sports journalism . He first moderated the youth soccer magazine Fujuma on DSF before moving to WDR , where he led through sports in the west .

In the spring of 2006, Anthony Baffoe was appointed by the Ghana's Football Association as responsible for international relations, where he should also act as a link between the association and the national players.

Baffoe is also the FIFA-appointed ambassador against racism and will act as General Coordinator of the Maracanã Stadium during the 2014 World Cup .

family

The actresses Rosalind and Liz Baffoe , the latter known as Mary from the series Lindenstrasse , are his sisters.

successes

literature

  • Christian Karn, Reinhard Rehberg: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 9: Player Lexicon 1963-1994. Bundesliga, regional league, 2nd league. Agon-Sportverlag, Kassel 2012, ISBN 978-3-89784-214-4 , p. 34.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anthony Baffoe (recorded by Dirk Westerheide): My home game in a foreign country. In: kicker sports magazine . February 4, 1991, pages 12/13.
  2. ↑ Interview with Anthony Baffoe on the Toten Hosen homepage ( Memento from December 10, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on August 27, 2010)
  3. ↑ Anthony Baffoe is the Oliver Bierhoff of Ghana (accessed on August 27, 2010)
  4. ↑ Former Fortuna professional: Anthony Baffoe is the master of the Maracana
personal data
SURNAME Baffoe, Anthony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ghanaian soccer player and television sports presenter
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH bad Godesberg