Ayew keen to make a point to Marseille (Feature)

By Jonathan Wilson Jun 17, 2010, 11:34 GMT

Rustenburg, South Africa - The sins of the father should not be visited upon his children, but what of the successes?

Andre 'Dede' Ayew has spent his career living in the shadow of his father, the great Abedi Pele, but perhaps at this tournament he is at last beginning to emerge as a player in his own right.

It didn't seem likely at the beginning if the season, though, when, after a successful loan spell at Lorient, he returned to Marseille, the French club at whose academy he learned the game and where his father dazzled in the early 1990s.

Marseille coach Didier Deschamps wasn't interested, and Ayew was loaned to the small second-division side Arles-Avignon.

Since then, things couldn't have gone much better for Ayew. He helped Ghana to the Under-20 World Cup in Egypt, was part of the senior national team as they finished second in the African Cup of Nations, and was a key figure as Arles-Avignon won an unexpected promotion.

Ghana's victory over Serbia in their opening game in the World Cup now leaves them on the brink of further success and a second successive passage to the last 16.

'This was a coach who made his choices,' Ayew said of Deschamps. 'I have to respect this.

'I can't say my form since was a revenge ... but I really wanted to show them that I was here. I had to endure a big blow but that I have shown that I can hold my head high and that I had a role to play in football.'

He admits, though, that the events of last summer came as a terrible blow.

'In life there are things that make you go forward and grow up fast,' he said. 'I had played about 30 games with Lorient and when I arrived back at Marseille I heard that they didn't want me.

'I had to bounce back. I had to make the right decisions. There was no room for error. I had the chance to choose Arles, and they trusted me. Everybody was behind me and more importantly they let me play in my natural position on the right.'

The World Cup has come as the perfect end to his season of redemption.

'After what happened at the start of the season to play in a World Cup is something I couldn't have hoped for.

'I learnt a lot. I'm tougher from a mental point of view. At the end of the day this was bad but something good came from it.'

It may be that getting away from Marseille was just what Ayew needed to escape comparison with his father, who, as he is well aware, never played in the final stages of a World Cup.

'What my father achieved in Ghana is huge,' Ayew said. 'He brought a lot to the country. I'm very proud of what he has done, but this doesn't have any bearing on my game.

'Sometimes people may make useless comparisons. I suppose it's normal, but I had to learn to live with that. I think that nowadays I've got over this. Some people thought that maybe I would take the ball and dribble past ten players then score. There was a huge expectation.'

As he points out, though, he is still only 20, and what he has achieved in that short career is remarkable.

It could get more remarkable yet with a win over Australia, 4-0 losers to Germany in their first game, that, barring a Serbia victory over Germany, would carry them into the second round.

'This is only the start of what we want to achieve,' Ayew said. 'But Australia have a very good squad, even if they have made some mistakes against Germany.'

He is aware too that it is not just his nation, but a whole continent that is counting on Ghana.

'It's important for us to bring happiness to our country and to Africa,' he said.