Emmanuel Adebayor Adebayor was also eligible to play for Nigeria but chose to represent the country of his birth, Togo. Adebayor helped Togo qualify for the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations after scoring 11 goals in the qualifiers, more than any other player in the African qualifiers. On 10 February 2009, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) picked Adebayor as the African Footballer of the Year for 2008 at an awards ceremony held in Lagos, Nigeria. Adebayor beat final nominees Mohamed Aboutrika of Egypt and Ghana's Michael Essien in a vote that involved the national team coaches of CAF's 54 member-nations. It
Michael Essien signed a two-year-contract with Greek club Panathinaikos. The deal made him the club's highest-paid player, with an annual salary of €800,000. He spent the first three months of the season recovering from a leg injury. He was due to make his debut on 21 November 2015 against Panathinaikos' archrivals Olympiacos, but the match was cancelled. He played his first match one week later. On 24 January 2016, he scored his first goal for Panathinaikos in a 2–0 away league win over Levadiakos. After a season in Greece, Essien was omitted from Panathinaikos' squad for the 2016–17 season, with the expectation