Ghana international Abdul Baba Rahman admits he missed out on a potential move to Arsenal years before he would join Premier League rivals Chelsea in a £14 million deal, speaking to Nazaar Kinsella’s YouTube channel.
As the former Bundesliga flyer will tell you, it only takes one moment to change the direction of a footballer’s entire career.
Until suffering that fateful knee injury during Ghana’s African Cup of Nations clash with Uganda in 2017, Rahman was, to borrow his own expression, ‘flying’. Talk about being dragged back down to earth with a bump.
Though technically still a Chelsea player, the fact that Rahman has not played a single game for the London giants since the 2015/16 season – before Antonio Conte even arrived at Stamford Bridge – is largely down to the events of that fateful afternoon at the Stade de Port-Gentil nearly six years ago.
Chelsea’s Abdul Baba Rahman bouncing back from injury hell
“I was flying at the time, (on loan) at Schalke,” Rahman recalls. “It was a horrible feeling. I was 22 and now, boom, I’m 28! I still have these flashbacks, you know?
My first (operation), the surgeon literally said to my agent that I should be happy if I get back to playing because of the complications in the knee.
“When I arrived in Germany, I was just going up, up, up. Then, all of a sudden; down, down, down. It was difficult to get back, you have an injury that was meant to be, like, eight months and you end up doing years (out of the game).”
It’s testament to Rahman’s perseverance, then, that he is still playing on a regular basis. In one of the most competitive and physical league’s around no less; the English Championship. He’s featured nearly 40 times since joining Reading on the latest in a series of loan deals during the summer of 2021.
But, clearly, Rahman has always had that innate ability to bounce back from situations that might have broken lesser men.
“I missed out on the trial because I didn’t have a visa to the UK,” Rahman adds, explaining why a potential dream move to Arsenal slipped through his fingers while still a teenager. “I got denied a visa. But, one way or another, I found myself in London.”
Rahman, who has 48 caps for his country, will hope to feature in Ghana’s World Cup opener. The African outfit play Portugal on Thursday.
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