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As the world slides into the beginning of another decade, we take a look at the African players who have added glitz and glamour to the beautiful game.
African football has come of age and players from the continent have risen to become genuine global superstars. The last 10 years especially, saw remarkable periods with the World Cup coming to the continent when South Africa hosted it at the turn of the decade.
While an African team may not have lifted the World Cup yet, the players have become champions in all of the most important leagues in Europe, some even winning the second most coveted trophy in the game, the European Champions League.
Assembling the top 10 from a pool of abundant talent was a tough and painstaking effort, but the emphasis has been placed on the players international and individual honours as well as club achievements.
10. Vincent Enyeama
Easily the most outstanding African goalie of the last 10 years, Vincent Enyeama is one of the few goalkeepers from the continent that managed to have a successful career in Europe.
After winning 3 consecutive league titles as well 2 African Champions League in succession with Enyimba, he moved to Israel, first with Bnei Yehuda and subsequently Hapoel Tel Aviv with whom he won the league and cup double in the 2009-10 season. He was the team's penalty taker the previous season and ended up scoring 9 goals in 113 appearances for the club.
He moved to France with Lille in 2011 and was loaned back to Israel with Maccabi Tel Aviv after just one season. He won another Israeli league title before returning to Lille. He set a club record of going 11 games without conceding a goal and was 114 minutes away from equaling the Ligue 1 clean sheet record for a goalkeeper after he didn't pick the ball from his net in 1062 minutes!
He is alongside Joseph Yobo, the most capped Nigerian player of all time with 101 in an international career that spanned 13 years. After 4 previous attempts, he finally lifted the African Nations Cup in 2013 and participated in 2 World Cups with the Super Eagles.
9. Emmanuel Adebayor
Emmanuel Adebayor followed the footsteps of his idol, Nigerian international Kanu Nwankwo, a man he shared so much resemblance with to play for Arsenal. Despite a shaky start to his Arsenal career, he ended up with 46 goals in 104 appearances. A big-money move to Manchester City followed where he went on loan spells to Real Madrid and then Tottenham Hotspur with whom he signed for permanently. He spent a further year in London with Palace before seeing out the rest of his career in Turkey.
He is the only player in Premier League history to score a hattrick home and away against the same side in a season after he came off the bench to score 3 goals against Derby County in 2007.
He is Togo’s all-time leading goal scorer with 32 goals in 87 caps and was awarded the African Footballer of the Year in 2008.
8. Kolo Toure
It is arguable which of the two clubs he made more impact but Kolo Toure is one of only eight players to have won the Premier League with two different clubs (Arsenal and Manchester City) and the only African to have played for 3 of the Big 6, having made 46 appearances for Liverpool.
He was an integral part of the Arsenal ‘’Invincibles’’ that went a whole season undefeated and forged a remarkable defensive partnership with England international, Sol Campbell, guiding the team to the 2006 Champions League final where they lost to Barcelona.
Kolo Toure is the second most capped player in Ivorian history with 120 appearances and was part of the Elephants team to 3 World Cups as well as a record 7 African Nations Cup tournaments which they won in 2015.
7. John Obi Mikel
Fresh from the World Youth Championship where he won the Silver Ball behind the great Lionel Messi, John Obi Mikel got into a protracted contractual tussle between Manchester United and Chelsea which ended with him signing for the Blues. Mikel became a mainstay for his club. eventually spending a decade and amassing 350 appearances for the team.
Being a recipient of a Champions League medal, a Europa League, 2 Premier League medals, 3 FA Cups titles as well as a League Cup, he is easily one of the most decorated African players in the game.
He had a stint with Championship club, Middlesbrough before leaving England to play in Turkey with Trabzonspor. He was the captain of the Super League for a long time and led the team to the African Nations Cup title in 2013. He played 88 times for Nigeria including appearances in 2 World Cups.
6. Didier Drogba
Power. Passion. Prolific. Didier Drogba was a genuine top striker in his prime. One of those players you immediately knew a club couldn’t make an approach for. He was that immense at Chelsea. After his stints at Guingamp and Marseille, it was in London he announced himself. By the end of his Blues career, he was and still is the highest-scoring foreigner of all time and number 4 on the goal-scoring records. He became the first African player to score 100 goals in the Premier League.
Jose Mourinho brought him to Chelsea in 2004 and despite his slow start, he won the Premier League title in his debut season as well as the next and in 2012, becoming the only player to score in 4 different FA Cup finals. He has scored 10 goals in 10 finals he has played!
He is the record goalscorer for the national team with 65 goals from 105 appearances and was the captain of the team for 8 years. He led them to their debut World Cup appearance scoring his nation’s first-ever goal at the tournament and won 2 runners up medals at the African Nations Cup. He also won the African Footballer of the year twice.
5. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
The captain of Gabon and the Gunners has morphed into one of the most prolific strikers to come out of the continent. After loan spells with several French clubs, it was at German giants, Borussia Dortmund that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang hit the limelight with a whopping 98 goals in just 148 games including a goal from his first shot in the league. He won many individual laurels including the Bundesliga player of the year in 2016 and top goalscorer the following season, earning a big-money move to Arsenal in the Premier League.
He finished as the league’s joint-top scorer in his debut season for the London club and has scored an astonishing 43 goals in 65 starts for the Gunners. He is the record goalscorer for the Gabonese national team and was named African Footballer of the Year in 2015
4. Riyad Mahrez
When the lanky Algerian first heard of Leicester City, he presumed it was a rugby club! He moved to England from Le Havre and won the Championship a few months later and promotion to the Premier League. In his second season, he and his teammates pulled off the eighth wonder of the world when they won the league title and in the process, Riyad Mahrez became the first African player in history to win the PFA Player of the Year award.
He became the most expensive player in African and Manchester City history when the club forked out £60 million for his services in the summer of 2018. He won two league titles in succession, thus becoming the second African to win the title with two different clubs (after Kolo Toure) and the first African player to win the English domestic treble after City clinched the League Cup in the same season.
While he had the chance to play for France internationally, he chose to play for Algeria and was involved in the 2014 World Cup. He captained the team to glory in the 2019 edition of the African tourney and has scored 15 goals in 56 appearances for the Desert Foxes.
He was crowned African Footballer of the Year in 2016.
3. Sadio Mane
Sadio Mane was 4th in the recent Ballon d'Or votes and analysts say he should have finished higher up. That is a testament to the progress the Senagalese has made since he joined Metz as a 19-year-old seven years ago to become one of the hottest properties in world football. Two years at Salzburg earned him a move to the Premier League, first with Southampton and then Liverpool, where he has become a global superstar.
He played in 2 consecutive Champions League final, winning the latter and finished as the joint top scorer in the league last season. He holds the record for the fastest hattrick in Premier League history when he scored thrice for Southampton against Sunderland in 2 minutes 56 seconds.
He has scored 19 goals in 69 appearances for the Teranga Lions, including a World Cup appearance.
2. Mohamed Salah
To think that Mohamed Salah was still playing for domestic side Al Mokawloon as at 2012 shows how meteoric his rise has been. He has within a short period won tons of individual plaudits that many players can only dream of.
While his first coming to English football with Chelsea was nothing to write home about, his second coming, this time with Liverpool has catapulted him to immense stardom, currently regarded as one of the best players in world football. In his debut season, he broke the league’s scoring record for a 38 game season, scoring 32 goals in 36 league games ending the season as the league’s Player of the Year, as well as coming third in the FIFA Player of the Year award.
The next season, he finished as joint top scorer again and won the Champions League at the second time of asking, scoring 10 goals in the competition; a first for an African player. A genuine idol in his home country, he has played 67 times for the Pharaohs, scoring 41 goals and won the African Player of the Year in 2018 and 2019.
1. Yaya Toure
Many football analysts have opined that without Yaya Toure, Manchester City would not have been anywhere near successful as a club. Originally a striker, his game evolved from being a defender to be one of the best box-to-box midfielders to ever play the game.
Having been an ever-present in the great Barcelona side that dominated Europe in the mid-decade, he moved to the Premier League and it was at City he showed his genuine value, dominating games and scoring crucial goals as he helped the Citizens win their first-ever title.
He is arguably the most decorated African player ever having won everything in club football with Barcelona and a further 3 Premier league titles with City. He won the African Nations Cup in 2015 and he holds a record 4 African Footballer of the year scalps, all which he won in succession.
