Joe Addo’s enviable record in Ghana football

Ex-Ghana international Joe Addo says he holds the record as the only player to have captained Ghana’s national teams at all levels.

I hold record for captaining Ghana’s U17, U20, U23 and Black Stars – Joe Addo

The 52-year-old said captaining the U-17s, U20s, U-23s and the Black Stars is a record that has completely gone under the radar.

Addo made his name with Ghana Premier League giants Hearts of Oak, where he won some trophies in the late 1980s.

The former centre-back went on to play for Stuttgart in Germany, Sparta Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Tampa Bay Mutiny in the United States.

For Ghana too, he represented the national teams at various levels from 1990 to 2000, and feels proud to have captained his country at all levels.

"I have a lot of records that people don’t know,” Addo said in an interview with Dan Kwaku Yeboah TV on YouTube.

“I played for Ghana’s U-17 as captain, I captained the U-20 team as well. I played for Academicals too as captain, and I was made Black Stars captain as well.

"I was captain of Ghana’s U-23 team, but they dropped me from the squad for the Olympics in Barcelona. However, I went to Atlanta as captain. Sam Arday felt bad when he dropped me, but he later took me to Atlanta as compensation."

Addo also opened up on combining football with education, insisting it wasn’t common for national team players back then.

"I was the only captain playing for the Black Stars as a student at the university; it has never happened before," he added.