Ardent supporter of Junior Agogo hopeful of footballer's recovery

“Who am I that you are so mindful of me, that you will hear me when I call?” – Job 7:17 God His maker. This simple but humbling quote comes to mind when I think of Junior Agogo.

Manuel ‘Junior‘ Agogo is a Ghanaian former professional footballer who has scored over 140 goals in his professional football career and immensely helped Ghana qualify for the final stages of the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations where they placed third.

I was so saddened and touched by Junior Agogo’s plight and decided to express my heartfelt prayers to him and his mother because I still believe in him and know he will bounce back soon in another capacity.

At 32 Junior Agogo was at the pinnacle of his career, playing great soccer and was idolized by many including myself.

With all the money and the fame, one could wonder, what could go wrong at this time of his life? Well, the now 38-year-old Agogo suffered a stroke in January 2015, after retiring from football and has Aphasia which has adversely impeded his speech liabilities.

Junior Agogo is being taken care of by his mother.

Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is due to injury to the brain, especially from a stroke.

In some cases, it makes communication with the patient impossible. It is associated with difficulty to retrieve names of objects and inability to put together sentences.

Speaking for the first time after the stroke, Agogo in a BBC documentary published BBC documentary published October 29, 2017, said the stroke left him lacking confidence, and he feels socially isolated.

It is my wish to see all reading this article to pray for him and his mother and my plea is that all his former teammates reach out to him in support. The more love and support he gets the sooner he will hopefully gain back his confidence.