How Good Was Weah The Player Part - I

Posted by betensured02 on March 1st, 2018

Ex-AC Milan, Chelsea & Man City Striker George Weah Elected Liberia President

Former Chelsea, Manchester City and AC Milan striker George Weah will be the next president of Liberia.

Weah, 51, became the first non-European player to win the Ballon d’Or in 1995 – just one of many achievements over a prolific 18-year professional career that ended in 2003.

He entered politics after his retirement and had been serving as a senator in Liberia’s parliament.

His victory was announced by Liberia’s National Elections Commission on Thursday – it said that with 98.1% of ballots counted, Weah had won 61.5% of the vote.

He will succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president. She defeated Weah in elections in 2005, held shortly after the end of a brutal civil war.

How good was Weah the player?

Weah’s most famous goal for AC Milan was a solo effort against Verona which started in his own penalty area

For a few years in the 1990s, Weah was among the best strikers in world football.

Capable of scoring all sorts of goals, his most famous moment came while playing for AC Milan in 1996 when he scored a solo effort against Verona which started in his own penalty area and saw him dribble past almost an entire team.

First brought to Europe by Arsene Wenger at Monaco in 1988, Weah scored 47 league goals for the club in four years before a move to Paris St-Germain. There he won the league title in 1994 and was the top scorer in the Champions League a year later – finishing ahead of Jari Litmanen, Romario and Hristo Stoichkov – before moving to Milan in 1995.

Playing alongside Roberto Baggio, Weah won Serie A in his first season with the club and won it again in 1999 but eventually fell out of favour and had short spells with both Chelsea and Manchester City in the Premier League.

But he scored just four goals in the English top flight though before returning to France – though he did add the FA Cup to his trophy collection with the Blues.

At international level, Weah was unable to help Liberia reach a World Cup but he did play in two Cup of Nations, scoring against Mali in 2002.

How Weah made Ballon d’Or history

• Prior to 1995, only European players were eligible to win the Ballon d’Or
• He remains the only African player to win the award
• That year, the rules were changed to allow all players who play for European clubs to be eligible              
• Of the 21 awards given since Weah’s win, 11 have gone to Europeans
• Weah won in 1995 – the first non-European to do so      
• Six AC Milan players have won the award – no club has had more winners