During a distinguished 20-year playing career that included spells with Chelsea, Real Madrid and AC Milan, Michael Essien played under some of the best managers in the game.
But it wasn’t a desire to follow in the footsteps of Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti or Guus Hiddink that motivated one of the finest midfielders of his generation to try his hand at coaching.
“I just woke up one day and thought, ‘Let me start doing something,'” Essien tells BBC Sport.
“I started coaching so I could learn how it is to be a coach. Now I talk to a few of [my former managers]. Just normal talk – nothing tactical.
“I had some great, great managers that I was lucky to work under. I learned a few things from Jose and from Ancelotti – his calmness and how he manages his players, the way he tried to put his arms around his players.
“Now I understand a bit more why Jose would get angry.”
Since 2020 Essien has been working as an assistant coach for Danish top-flight side FC Nordsjaelland (FCN).
That might seem a curious choice of club for a player as well known as Essien to begin his coaching career. But Nordsjaelland’s background drew the former Ghana international to the team based in Farum, a small town in the east of Denmark.
In a reversal of the usual dynamic, Nordsjaelland are a professional club owned and operated by a youth academy.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the Right to Dream academy was founded in Ghana in 1999 by Tom Vernon, a former Manchester United scout.
With a holistic approach to developing its youngsters on and off the pitch, the academy has produced several top players while also providing a route to further education for its students.
West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus, Southampton’s Kamaldeen Sulemana and Brentford’s Mikkel Damsgaard are among Right to Dream’s most notable graduates.
In 2019 Right to Dream purchased Nordsjaelland to provide a pathway to European football for its best hopefuls. And next year its new American venture, San Diego FC, will join MLS as an expansion club.
“I’ve known the founder, Tom Vernon, for a very long time, since I was 17 or 18,” Essien explains. “I always kept in contact with him and he followed my football career. When I stopped playing, he just messaged me and said, ‘What are you doing?’
“I said, ‘I think I’m done playing.’ And he said, ‘OK, maybe you should come and look around the place.’ He told me about the whole project. I came and it was a nice environment. So I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love work here.’
“I love how they develop their boys here, giving very young boys the opportunity to experience professional football.
“That was one of the reasons I chose to be here. It’s calmer; the environment is very nice and very healthy. Everyone is ready to help whenever you need.”
‘This generation can be quite difficult’
Essien is not the only face familiar to Premier League fans who has worked under the Right to Dream umbrella.
Djimi Traore, a Champions League winner with Liverpool in 2005, coached at the academy’s base in Ghana before taking charge of AS Monaco’s youth team this year. Developing coaches comes a close second in the hierarchy of priorities within the academy’s multi-club set-up.
“We are happy when coaches leave us,” says Flemming Pedersen, Right to Dream’s technical director, who previously served as Brentford’s B team manager.
“It’s the same with our players. Then we hope our best coaches will one day come back home again.
“I was away for a year and a half at Brentford. You always learn something new when you meet a new culture. That’s important for us.
“We will be stronger if some of our coaches leave for big clubs in other countries. Our philosophy is: when we help each other, we will get a lot of good things back.
“Success for us is the integration of players from our academies. If we don’t get that, we will never get results.
“We are measuring the development of our style of play. That will give us better results. We are also measuring our coaches and how we educate our coaches.”
For now, though, Essien has no plans to flee the Nordsjaelland nest in search of managerial opportunities.
“I’m not thinking about being a head coach. Not yet,” he says.
“But when I get there, I will develop my style of play around the FCN model of what we’re doing here. I have a few more years to go. Let’s see. Maybe I will get there.
“When I was playing, I never thought I would jump into this journey. But coming to the end of my career, I was thinking one day, ‘I’ve done football my whole life and I think that’s what I do best. I should start doing something just to keep my routine going.’
“I also wanted to get the ideas and strategies of how to be a coach, to learn how to be a coach. That’s how it all came about.
“And also because I love the game. I’m always going to be in and around the game.
“I try and do my best to help the young boys coming up so they can do something with their careers.
“This generation, sometimes they can be quite difficult. Sometimes they think they know the world, but actually they don’t know anything.
“To have me around, it’s easy for them to come and ask me a few questions and I give them a few guidelines and some advice.”
As much as he protests, however, it seems Essien is preparing for a shot at management. Just as he once mastered the art of midfield play, he’s now loading up on ideas for how to crack coaching.
“I’ve just finished one football management course,” he says. “It’s given me some ideas on how football clubs are run, the organisation and everything.
“I’m just collecting some knowledge about the game because football goes beyond the pitch.”
