‘PRINCE OF GOALS’: Opoku Agyemang Is Back, Like He Never Left

Ah, yes, he’s back.

And it didn’t take very long, following his return from a loan spell in South Africa, for Prince Opoku Agyemang to reclaim his place as one of the Ghana Premier League’s elite goalscorers.

Agyemang’s stint with DStv Premiership side Cape Town City wasn’t at all successful, and he’d struggle to speak about it with any fondness.

He failed, ultimately, to impress, and his stay was cut short; Agyemang didn’t even last long enough for the coastal club to ponder activating the option to buy.

Still, it’s hard to blame Agyemang for only managing four starts and just one goal for the Citizens. Three months isn’t enough time for most to settle into a new country, and/or in a new league – never mind one that is believed to be of a higher standard than the one Agyemang had left behind.

But, as mentioned at the outset, Agyemang is back now, and it hardly feels like he left at all. The 26-year-old has picked up where he left off at the end of the prematurely terminated 2020/21 campaign, during which he scored 11 goals to spur Medeama on in their title charge.

That touch, which deserted him — briefly — in South Africa, has been re-discovered. That much was evident just 27 minutes into his ‘second debut’, when Agyemang scored to set Medeama on their way to a 2-0 victory over visiting Techiman Eleven Wonders in February.

He got another goal when his team engaged Berekum Chelsea on the next matchday, earning the Mauve & Yellow a precious point on the road. A brace followed two games later, at home to Legon Cities, before Medeama traveled to Obuasi to take on Asante Kotoko.

The hosts scored first, after 13 minutes, but Agyemang leveled not long thereafter. He did so in style, too, plucking a nicely lofted ball from skipper Joseph Tetteh Zutah with his left foot, and, almost immediately, following it with a strike — low, hard, precise — past an unusually statuesque Razak Abalora.

And, just like that, Agyemang unlocked a Kotoko defence that has given away very few goals this season, and which had remained firmly bolted in the previous three games.

Just before the teams walked off the pitch for a breather, teammate Richard Boadu blasted a shot from range through the door Agyemang had swung wide a quarter of an hour earlier.

Medeama hung on to win the game, and to claim Kotoko’s place at the top the table — quite a feat, given how the first few weeks of the team’s season went, and the fact that they are under new technical leadership for the first time in four years.

“I don’t think any club can compete with us in terms of field of play this season,” Agyemang bragged after the game.

“Our team cohesion works perfectly, from the goalkeeping department to the attack,” he continued, in explaining why Medeama are, currently, “the best club in the country.”

The team — and that belief — has certainly been reinforced by solid mid-season transfer business, which has drafted in the likes of Agyemang and experienced strike partner Ahmed Toure to catalyse the revival of Medeama’s title hopes.

Agyemang would have his personal target, of course, namely, the top-scorer’s prize he had within his sights — and within his grasp — last term.

He isn’t yet in that conversation this season — Karela United’s star forward, Diawisie Taylor, is still some seven goals clear and leads the chart — but there are 13 games with which Agyemang could catch up.

At the rate of a goal per game, the odds don’t look so bad.

Yaw Frimpong — Ink & Kicks