OTHER If you were walking around Astridpark in the early 1990s, you might have seen the young Ghanaian winger Yaw Preko pop up at Anderlecht. Preko (born on September 8, 1974, in Accra) moved to Brussels in 1992 with the hope of making his breakthrough with the purple and white. The year before, Anderlecht had seen him become world champion with the U17s.
He spent several seasons at Anderlecht, but he did not really excel in Belgium. Preko was best known for his unpredictability: he scored a number of gems against Club Brugge, among others, but also regularly messed up simple tap-ins. Nevertheless, he did not leave Anderlecht until five years later, with three titles, a cup, a super cup, and Olympic bronze with Ghana to his name.
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Continue reading After Anderlecht, he moved to Turkey in 1997, where he revived his career at Gaziantepspor. He later alternated between Fenerbahçe (where he failed to break through), Yimpaş Yozgatspor, and a return to Gaziantepspor. After that, he played in Sweden (at Halmstads BK), Saudi Arabia (Al-Ettifaq) and finally Vietnam at Hoang Anh Gia Lai. Preko hung up his boots in 2008. By then, he had already collected twenty caps for Ghana.
After his playing career, Preko took the common step of becoming a coach. He started as an assistant coach for the Ghanaian youth teams, including the U-20s. He also worked as an assistant and interim coach at Hearts of Oak, one of the most prominent clubs in Ghana, where he played at the start of his career. Preko then spent a period as head coach at Nigerian club Ifeanyi Ubah. In April 2019, he was entrusted by the football association with setting up the right youth structures and became head coach of the Ghanaian U-15 team. And the most recent step: in July 2024, he was appointed head coach of Nsoatreman FC in Ghana with a two-year contract. Preko is therefore still active in the world of football, albeit in Africa.
Yaw Preko was not the most successful African player at Anderlecht in the 1990s—he did not become a superstar, although there was hope for that in his late teens. But in the end, he alternated between brilliant moves, because he certainly had talent, and clumsiness in front of goal. In the end, he did contribute to the successes of the purple and white in the 1990s and filled his trophy cabinet nicely. After Anderlecht, he was unable to win any more trophies and his career declined in Turkey. However, he took all his European experience with him and transformed himself into a successful coach in his home country, with a clear talent for youth development. For Anderlecht itself, he was something of a driving force for other young African talent who joined the club during that period.
