By Samuel Bartels
Andre Dede Ayew has missed out on the African Player of the Year Awards twice now. Commiserations to him on the latest one which he could have won but for a typical case of sporting legerdemain.
He might never actually win the accolade but his greatest triumph as a footballer has already been accomplished- stepping out of the shadow of his father. In achieving that he has emerged not as the new Abedi Ayew but Andre Ayew. He was born to a man so besotted by a nation that he was unanimously given the monicker, “Maestro”.
From the very beginning Andre Ayew son of the truly legendary Abedi Pele came under intense scrutiny. When he started out in midfield, the comparison with Abedi Pele was inevitable. Playing in the same position offered scant relief for the young man as every pass, dribble and even gait was scrupulously scrutinised for signs of Abedi’s skills reincarnated.
To quote the famous actor Lionel Barrymore “A famous name is often a handicap”. An accurate statement given that the records of the offspring of football legends who have attempted to follow the footsteps of their fathers’ make grim reading.
Some never had the talent. Others showed great promise at the early stages only to find their old man’s shoes too big for their small size feet. The rest were judged by standards that were so unattainable that their ultimately futile attempt to measure up has in some instances driven them into self-destruction. Take Pele’s son Edinho, who was convicted of murder in 1999, a crime he was later pardoned for in 2005.
Jordi cruyff son of Johan Cruyff, Edinho son of Pele, Stephan Beckenbauer son of Franz: it reads like an obituary. They all tried but could not cut it like their fathers and simply capitulated under the pressure. At some point in the incipient stages of his career, Andre Ayew looked set to join the victim list.
That an outfield player is willing to convert to a goalkeeper just to escape comparison with a legendary father shows how being the son of a football legend can become a poisoned chalice.
Asked in 2015 why he became a goalkeeper? Zidane’s 16 year old son Luca who keeps the post for the French U-20 team told the FIFA weekly magazine “As a goalkeeper, I’m judged on my performances – there’s no way of comparing me with my father. So in that sense, yes, it’s definitely one of the reasons I became a keeper.”
You have to admire the ingenuity in the young Zidane’s logic. While his brother Enzo looks set to endure what has been the undoing of countless others before him, Luca has taken a completely different path. So did players like Sergio Busquets (whose dad was a goalkeeper). Kasper Schmeichel, son of Peter even considered a different sport altogether as he told the BBC “It’s definitely not been a help. It would have been easier to play a different sport. It’s quite boring really, probably because I’ve had it all my life. That’s my surname and the way it goes,”
Jordi Cruyff summed the plight of these sons of legends best in this quote from FourFourTwo magazine: “There are two types of football players – the legends and the mortals. My father is a legend and I am a mortal. The legends like my father – they come, they do and they remain. I am part of the vast majority of mortals – we come, we do and we die.” Unlike his father Cruyff (Jordi) was “neither a great player nor a terrible one. His only ‘crime’ was to be burdened with unrealistic expectations by an accident of birth – expectations which he was ultimately unable to justify…”
Andre and perhaps his brother Jordan therefore represent a rare success story. Andre, particularly has become the player who emerged from adversity to shake off the weight of his father’s name and create his own standards of being evaluated in stepping out of a legendary father’s shadow. I still recall interviewing Andre in the mixed zone of the Accra Sports Stadium soon after Ghana’s painful loss to Cameroon in the Afcon semi-final on home soil. At just 18 the pressure to emulate his Dad was creating visible strains. A broken-hearted nation in search of scapegoats found one in young Andre who at the last moment replaced Laryea Kingston in the semi-final starting line-up after the latter injured himself during the warm up. The judgment was damning. Andre was no Abedi Pele, he was a fraud getting chances because of his name rather than his talent. He was not good enough and was over-hyped! Dede was subsequently dropped from the Black Stars. For many a young player this could have been enough to crush them…
A nose dive in his club career followed between 2008 and 2010 within which period Marseille farmed him out on loan. His flailing career was saved only by a spectacular turnaround that began with his new demoted role of U-20 national team captain. He inspired that team to Africa’s first ever FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2009 and followed it up with a blistering outing at the FIFA world cup in South Africa. Marseille recalled him after the Mundial. Six years on, nobody asks whether Andre is the new Abedi Pele, everybody knows he is no Pele; but most will acknowledge that he is the new Dede Ayew, a player with a distinct set of qualities: Persistence, aerial ability, hard harrying, ball wining skills and the inevitable chip of the old bloc ball control. Within this period he has dared to pull on the dreaded No. 10 shirt his Dad once wore and but for bad fortune would have captained Ghana to an Afcon title eclipsing his father who never won it as captain. A smooth transition from Ligue 1 to the English Premier league in 2015 has further cemented his reputation in the game.
At 26, Andre is at the peak of his career. He is odds on favourite to succeed Asamoah Gyan as captain of the Black Stars. Having won his greatest personal battles against his father’s legacy, the path to success seems brighter than ever and the personal accolades and team titles that got away might still be within a touching distance.