Former Black Stars captain, Stephen Appiah, has revealed late Sam Arday, coach of the Black Starlets Ecuador’s 1995 U-17 World Cup winning team prophesied that he will be one of the best players in Ghana.

Speaking on JoySports Prime Take with Muftawu Nabila Abdulai, Appiah said despite playing just a game in the entire tournament, Arday could foretell he will have a great career in football.

“In Ecuador [during the U-17 World Cup], I had the chance to play one game. I'm not going to say only [one game] because I have to be true to myself that the players who were there were better, they had the experience; players like Joe  Ansah, Baba Sulley, David Amoako, Abu Iddrisu, Emmanuel Bentil, Awudu Issaka and the rest, I mean they were ahead of me,” he noted.

"So when we played our first and second games, we won the two games so by the third game we had qualified already so I was given the opportunity to play the last game. I played so well, Charles Allortey scored the only goal, we beat them 1-0.

"I didn’t get the opportunity to play again, we won the trophy we came back, and when we came back, we took the trophy on a tour. When we got to the Accra sports stadium, there were a lot of fans to welcome us.

“When Sam Arday was giving his speech, he said that he was thanking the fans and the players and everybody who supported them to win, but one thing [he added was that] there's a young player in our team who didn't get the chance to play but one day he will be one of the best in this country and it happened,” he stated.

He added that; “he [Arday] knew the quality I had. Sam Arday was a great man. He was one of those coaches who could look at a player and predict that he will be good in the future and most of the time, it happens.”

Stephen Appiah would go on to lead the Black Stars to its maiden appearance in the World Cup in 2006, before repeating the feat in 2010 where Ghana reached the quarterfinal of the tournament when it was staged in Africa for the first time.