Adebayor's Triumphant Journey

Now that the Euro 2008 championships are behind us (thank you Spain!!!), it's time to look forward to the wacky season, otherwise known as the summer transfer period.

Players will be moving left, right and center with big names rumored to be going to new clubs and bigger names actually making the moves.

One of these names is Arsenal striker and Togo superstar Emmanuel Adebayor.

The 24-year-old is now a household name in the football world, his meteoric rise aided by a string of scintillating displays for English Premier League side Arsenal.

Now Barcelona want him and if the news is to be believed, he's on his way to Spain.

Today, we present an article posted on the BBC last week about Adebayor's stunning rise to the Premier League and his triumphant return to Togo last month.

It's an interesting look at the modern footballer but also a glimpse into Adebayor's soul. As article writer Farayi Mungazi puts it, 'for a man with little education, he projects himself with consummate ease and is unfailingly polite. He reminded the cynic in me that not all professional footballers are arrogant millionaires with egos that match the size of their pay packets.'

Please read the article here and take a look at this snippet here ...

I think a lot of people know me just on the pitch," Adebayor says.

"They don't know where I come from and they don't know how I began."

"I put in a lot of hard work to be where I am today, but I'll never forget what it was like when I was young.

"Life was very difficult, and I told myself that I only had one chance to survive and that was to be a footballer."

Adebayor did not enjoy school, skipping classes to play football - though now, on his "tour of hope", he encourages children to stick to their studies.

He sees it as his chance to give something back to Africa's youth.

When he left Togo for France to embark on a professional career in 1999, not many would have foreseen that a football superstar had been unleashed.

"When I was going to Europe, I remember what my mother told me at the airport; she said: 'Manu, you see where we're living, you must go to France and do something good because we need your help.'"

He has now built her a huge, double-storey mansion in Lome, which is surrounded by shacks and run-down buildings.