Nii Odartey Lamptey Profile

CLUB:

Cosmos

POSITION:

Forward

BORN:

1974-12-10

BIRTHPLACE:

PREVIOUS CLUBS:

Kotoko(GHA), Shandong (China), Greuther Fürth(Germany), Uniao Leiria (Portugal), Union Santa Fe(Argentina), Ankaragücü(Turkey), AC Venedig (Italy), Coventry City(England), Aston Villa(ENG), PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands), RSC Anderlecht (Belgium), Young Corners(Ghana)

HEIGHT / WEIGHT:

NIKNAME:

GHANA DEBUT :

1991-00-00

CAPS/GOALS:

38/?

U-17 World Championship Italy 1991

Adidas Golden Ball at U-17 World Championship Italy 1991

The player who in 1990 took the World Youth stage by storm and was compared to soccer legend, Pele of Brazil. The former world junior champion is at the moment without a club. The midfielder left Shandong in China at the end of the 2002 season.

Lamptey who was expected to become the greatest Ghanaian player advancing past Abedi Ayew Pele rather has become the most travelled, playing in as many as seven European countries - Belgium, Holland, England, Italy, Turkey, Germany and Portugal and also in South America, Argentina to be precise and until recently Asia, with Shandong in China.

Lamptey was 15 when he made his debut for Dutch club Anderlecht. But before he was 20, it was clear Lamptey would not become the world-class player many expected him to be. He wound up bouncing between clubs in Europe and South America. His last known team was in China.

He started his career as a teenage sensation in Belgium with Anderlecht and later played at PSV Eindhoven in The Netherlands and in England with Aston Villa and Coventry City.

But Lamptey's career has been in freefall since with unsuccessful spells at clubs in Italy, Turkey, Argentina and Portugal. His last appearance for Ghana came in the 1996 African Nations Cup finals in South Africa.

Odartey made his full debut for Ghana in 1991 against Nigeria in African Cup Qualifiers at Lagos. He started as an u17, helping Ghana to qualify in 1988 for the World Championships in Scotland,1989.

Moved to Cosmos in March 2007