At 27, John Boye has reached a critical point of his career, both for club and country. A few weeks after his contract with Rennes expired, putting an end to a six year-stint at the Breton club, the Ghanaian centre-back was included in James Appiah’s 23-man squad for the World Cup in Brazil. A fair reward for a player whose hard work and irreproachable ethics have convinced most in Rennes, despite rather chaotic debuts.
Let’s be honest about it; John Boye isn’t exactly a Laurent Blanc or a Franz Beckenbauer. His playing style is based on physical strength, muscle power and spectacular defensive improvisations rather than on serene observation, anticipation and tactical perfection. But despite his shortcomings, John Boye has always shown a positive, warrior-at-heart attitude during his time at Rennes, and it is no surprise to see him make the cut to the World Cup, two years after his first major international tournament with Ghana in the 2012 African Nations Cup.
In a highly rejuvenated squad (25.5 years old in average), John Boye will be the most capped centre-back in the Ghanaian squad, and with this honour will come responsibilities. Although he isn’t guaranteed a starting XI position yet, with Jonathan Mensah and Rashid Sumaila also in contention, Boye will have the mission to help his younger team-mates get in the groove of the tournament and keep their heads up in difficult times. A mission he will share with such Ghanaian legends as Sulley Muntari, Michael Essien and former Rennes teammate Asamoah Gyan.
If he was to make it to the first eleven, which remains a doubt after he missed most of the league season due to a niggling groin injury, you can expect the sort of displays only John Boye can offer. As mentioned before, he has proved his worth as a centre-back, but his style remains somewhat quite special. His spectacular style of defending, in fact, was spotted before he even started playing in Ligue 1, when he was in the Rennes Reserve squad. A natural ability to confuse his own teammates with unlikely moves soon saw him earn a reputation as an elite blunder-master, a notoriety that would follow him for rest of his time in Brittany, even though he did wonders to improve his game and install himself as a valuable option in the Stade Rennais rotation.
The way he plays probably has something to do with it. Every tackle, every intervention seems to be completed with the sort of panicked rush you only expect to witness in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Somehow, Boye seems inclined to give his opponents a slight head start before getting them back in the most unconventional way he can think of. Incredible sprints, unlikely tackles, uncontrolled slides, you can expect all of these on a regular basis. If you look beyond his wobbly-man defending style, however, you will find a player who doesn’t only manage to unite efficiency with a highly unorthodox style, but also commits surprisingly few fouls, gains the ball often and rarely misplaces a pass. A discipline learnt under the orders of former Rennes coach Frederic Antonetti who said about Boye, in 2011: “He may well be the best defender in my squad (…) He needs to control his emotions better, but he is a great kid, and he will do well.”
Three years later, Boye has proved his former mentor right and, as he prepares to face the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Miroslav Klose in Group G, the motivations will be huge and multiple for the man from Accra. A free agent, he doesn’t know where his future lies (an interest from Turkish side Kayseri Erciyesspor has been mentioned recently), and a successful World Cup could give a huge boost to his professional future. Despite being drawn in a terribly difficult group (with Germany, Portugal and the USA), Boye and all the Ghanaians will also chase the dream of emulating the exploits of the 2010 squad, which came so agonisingly close to clinching a place in the semi-finals. And, last but not least, John Boye will be keen to show the world that his playing style isn’t only a game of last-ditch, panicked defence… and that he deserves his place in Brazil as a centre-back of international calibre.