George Weah: The Greatest African Footballer of All Time

It is not just by words or writings, but by actions and achievements, George Weah, born 01/10/1966 was and still is the greatest African Footballer of all time. He is the only African footballer to have become world player of the year. True to his title of the greatest African footballer of all time, George Weah began his footballing career in his native Liberia in the 1980s. He was spotted and brought to Europe in 1988 by the then Monaco manager Arsene Wenger. This was after starring for his local Liberian side where he won the Liberian Premier League and the Liberian Cup. His successful career at Monaco under Arsene Wenger led to the club winning the French Cup in 1991, as well as European Cup Winners' Cup in 1992.

It was his successful spell in Monaco that led to a move to Olympique Marseille where he won the French league crown and helping the club to a semi-final place in the UEFA Champions League where Weah is fondly remembered for his skilful and solo wonder goal against Bayern Munich in the group stages of the competition. Weah's performances in the UEFA Champions League earned him a move to the then European giants AC Milan, a club where Weah enjoyed his most successful stints as a football player. Weah helped his new club to two Italian League titles, but his new club did not repeat their earlier success in Europe. His performances in his first season at Milan, especially his goal-scoring prowess ensured that he was named the European Player of the Year and FIFA World Player of the Year becoming the first and only African native player to ever win these coveted awards. In fact, he was the fifth player in the world to have placed his hands on the FIFA award. One of the highlights of his career at Milan was his amazing solo effort during a league match against Verona where he covered the length of an entire football field to score a wonderful solo goal. Having received the ball just at the edge of his team's penalty box, George Weah started a marauding run, passing over seven opposing players before scoring arguably the best goal of his career.

Stints in England

The now ageing player left AC Milan in 2000 to join Chelsea in England where he won the FA Cup before moving to Manchester City and then again to Olympique Marseille. After a short spell at Marseille, Weah moved to the Middle East with Al Jazira in the UAE where he played his last games until his retirement in 2003. Despite all the successes at club level, Weah was not able to emulate his club performances with the Liberian national team as he was always surrounded by mediocre players. He was, however, always committed to the national team and would always captain, coach and finance the team in all their footballing activities. Nevertheless, he did help the national team to qualify for two editions of the Africa Nations Cup where they were both eliminated in the group stages.

Having been an African player of the year on three occasions, European Player of the Year and FIFA World Player of the Year, George Weah was voted as the African Player of the century by sportswriters all over the world; thus elevating him to the calibre of the Brazilian legend Pele and Johan Cruyff of Holland.