Michael Essien his power-packed performances. In the quarter-final against Nigeria, when team captain John Mensah was dismissed on the stroke of the hour for a professional foul on Nigeria's Peter Odemwingie, Essien assumed the captaincy for the remainder of the match as Ghana eventually won 2–1. He was voted as an All-Star Player during the tournament. The Team of the Tournament was decided by the Technical Study Group (TSG) after careful observations of all the tournament's matches. During an international match played against Libya on 5 September 2008, Essien ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament playing for Ghana in the World Cup qualification
Mark Essien Mark Essien Mark Essien (born December 18, 1980 in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State) is a Nigerian entrepreneur, software developer and startup investor. He is the founder and CEO of Hotels.ng, one of the first and most successful online hotel booking websites in Nigeria. Before founding Hotels.ng, Mark Essien had previously built a file sharing software called Gnumm (acquired by Snoopstar.com), followed by a language learning startup called Ingolingo. In 2013, he founded Hotels.ng. Spark.ng made an initial investment of $75,000 and another investment of $150,000. In 2015, the company secured additional investment funding of $1.2m from international investors EchoVC