When Fentuo met Essien: The Backstory
Watching Michael Essien open up to Fentuo Tahiru Fentuo in a Joy Sports exclusive interview was quite the surprise — a very pleasant one, to say the least.
For someone who so often left it all on the pitch back in the day, Essien has always been rather reticent about letting the world in on his thoughts and private life. To secure an interview with the former Chelsea, Real Madrid and AC Milan midfielder is a luxury — a collector’s item for any Ghanaian reporter — few have ever landed.
He has still not really warmed up to the idea of being regularly in the limelight, Essien made clear in the aforementioned interview, insisting his aversion to “being the main man, with all the media and cameras in [my] face” as the only reason he isn’t keen on stepping up from the background, in the serene Danish countryside where he currently works with FC Nordsjaelland, to take up a head coach role anytime soon.
But here he was, seated across from one of Ghana’s top sports journalists at Nordsjaelland’s Right to Dream Park, and speaking with a degree of freedom and mirth many may not have thought he had in him.
This — a man willing to speak and smile unreservedly, rather uncharacteristically, throughout an interview of reasonable length — was a different Essien to the enigmatic figure Ghanaians are accustomed to.
Here’s how it all happened.
“The interview has been two years in the making,” Fentuo reveals.
“I have been a fan of Chelsea since my days as a student at the University of Ghana, circa 2006, and Essien had a lot to do with the Blues winning me over. My first year at school coincided with his second at Stamford Bridge, during which he had a phenomenal campaign that saw him named Chelsea Player of the Season. I certainly had a lot of fun watching him in the Legon Hall’s TV room.”
Fentuo’s fascination with Essien had only just begun, and he would not grow out of it despite going on to become, in the media space, an admired public figure in his own right. It wasn’t, however, until only a couple of years ago that his lifelong desire to meet the one-time BBC African Footballer of the Year was fulfilled.
“That encounter came at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, when a mutual acquaintance of ours invited me over to watch the Argentina vs Croatia semi-final game at the Lusail Stadium with Michael for company,” Fentuo recounts.
“It was, indeed, an incredible privilege — and certainly my best moment from that entire World Cup — to sit beside such a great of the game and personal hero of mine for over two hours, talking about football and listening to his insights on the action unfolding on the pitch, but what really stood out was his ability to recollect details; Michael really does not forget anything, trust me!”
This was an experience Fentuo was never going to forget in a hurry — and he was determined to ensure Essien himself wouldn’t, either.
“I think I made a mark,” Fentuo laughs, “although I only took with me a photograph and the memories.”
He could have asked for more — an explicit request for an interview, maybe, but surely Essien’s contact — yet Fentuo deliberately, and perhaps shrewdly, kept his excitement in check. Deep down, however, he prayed he had done just enough to land a second ‘date’.
That, incidentally, came via another high-profile interview Fentuo scored earlier this year: Tom Vernon, owner of FC Nordsjaelland, was his host at the Right to Dream Academy campus in Old Akrade, Ghana. Following the conclusion of that session, Fentuo casually mentioned how he craved a similar arrangement with Essien.
Vernon, effectively Essien’s boss, responded by assuring Fentuo that he could make it happen. Just one condition, though: the journalist had to get himself all the way to Denmark.
“I think he might have underestimated the lengths to which I was willing to go just to speak to my idol,” Fentuo chuckles.
“That was in June this year, and shortly thereafter I traveled to Paris for the Summer Olympics, where I reached out to Tom again. In turn, he spoke to Michael, and then, with the latter’s permission, sent me his number. On messaging Michael, he immediately recognised who I was and we started to reminisce, like old pals would do, over that meeting in Qatar some 20 months prior. Before long, interview dates were being discussed — and we were good to go.”
As Fentuo quickly found out, arranging an interview with Essien was, by far, the easy part.
“For at least two reasons, weeks before the agreed meeting, my nerves got the better of me: one, as mentioned earlier, Michael is comfortably my favorite Chelsea player, and, two, he is not much of a talker so I was afraid the interview would be stale and low on highlights.”
How intensely did you prepare, then?
“Well, already armed with in-depth knowledge about a playing career that I devoutly followed, I basically read on what he had been up to since retiring — mainly his coaching journey and life at Nordsjaelland — along with the bits about his personal stuff, like the name of his dog (Rasta), available on the Internet. I opted against scripting questions, though, focusing instead on thematic areas.”
And when the time came, both men were ready.
Essien himself was probably nervous, too, having not really done this sort of thing before, but for days prior — and for at least half an hour in the immediate build-up to the interview — he had been reassured that no surprises would be sprung on him.
“I offered an outline of the scope to be covered and promised to steer well clear of anything he didn’t want asked, as it was absolutely essential that I get him to trust me before the interview started,” Fentuo says. “That extra guarantee of security, no doubt, made it much easier for this ordinary reclusive character to open up to me.
Breaking the ice by inquiring what Essien thought of his intro — an opportunity to gauge his mood once filming had begun — Fentuo made a point of laughing at his interviewee’s jokes, cracking a few of his own, and coaxing answers out in moments when they weren’t so forthcoming.
“It helped that I stayed on track and strived to suppress the urge to sneak in any of the many awkward questions running through my mind. I could feel the levels of trust grow as the time went by, and the more relaxed he felt, the better the conversation flowed. In the end, it all felt less like an interview than a friendly chat between two guys with shared interests and mutual respect.”
The controlled, easy-going, and non-confrontational approach adopted by Fentuo has earned him plaudits from colleagues and the general viewership on X (formerly Twitter).
And while Fentuo has graciously soaked it all in, glad that people have widely embraced the style employed and the art that went into it, what he hopes to have achieved was peeling back that layer of impenetrability that has long enveloped Essien’s public profile while making the former Ghana international less wary of engaging the press in the future.
Someday, Fentuo believes, someone — himself or another journalist — would be able to prod and probe Essien a bit harder at a time he may be more receptive to such directness.
That time, though, is not now, as Fentuo feels Essien “is still the quiet, media-shy bloke” we knew from his playing days, “an ambitious yet unassuming fellow who impresses with his humility, politeness, intelligence and that sharp memory”.
There is more, though.
“Shining through, too, was the sense of gratitude that Michael exudes throughout; that, despite the numerous setbacks in his career, especially with injuries, he remains very content with what he got out of the sport,” Fentuo concludes.
“And while he says he’s not thinking about coaching at the highest level right now, if he decides to make the switch, I am certain he would have his players running through brick walls for him, simply because of the special relationship he has built with the young lads he works with at Nordsjaelland. They aren’t just in awe of him; they also love him, genuinely.”
Watching the interview — all 55 minutes and 11 seconds of it — you’d suspect Fentuo does, too.