Sulley Muntari

**Sulley Muntari** (born 27 August 1984) is a former Ghanaian football player. He played for Internazionale Milano and the Ghanaian national team. A former left-back, Muntari later developed into a powerful, experienced, hard-working, and tenacious midfielder; although he is primarily known for his physical strength and combative playing style, he was also able to make notable improvements to his technical skills throughout his career. He also possesses a good left foot, a powerful shot from outside the area, and is a solid passer of the ball. Widely considered as one of the best Ghana's midfielders in his prime.

## Club career

For the 2002/03 season, the then 18-year-old Muntari moved from Liberty Professionals from Ghana to Serie A club Udinese Calcio.

In the summer of 2006, he wanted to move to the Premier League, preferably to Manchester United. In the winter of 2007, several English and Italian clubs, such as AC Milan, showed interest in the Ghanaian midfielder. However, Udinese Calcio rejected an offer of over eleven million euros in the winter. In the summer of 2007, Muntari moved to Portsmouth FC for the equivalent of ten million euros. He signed a contract until 2012. In 2008, he won the FA Cup with Portsmouth.

In the summer of 2008, Muntari returned to Italy to join Inter Milan for 14 million euros. He signed a five-year contract. After Muntari was no longer able to progress beyond the role of a substitute at Inter, he was loaned to AFC Sunderland for six months in January 2011. There he met John Mensah and Asamoah Gyan, with whom he also plays in the Ghanaian national team.

On 31 January 2012, Inter Milan loaned Muntari to AC Milan until the end of the season. He was later given a two-year contract until 30 June 2014.

On 30 June 2015, it was announced that Muntari's contract with AC Milan was terminated by mutual consent.

He has been under contract with Ittihad FC since July 27, 2015. His contract there is for two years. However, the contract was terminated in July 2016.

Muntari was looking for a club until January 2017, before joining Italian first division club Delfino Pescara 1936. He only made 9 appearances for the second division club.

After another long period without a club, he signed with Deportivo La Coruña on 22 February 2018. In 2019, he was briefly under contract with Albacete Balompié. In 2022, he returned to his homeland and signed a contract with Accra Hearts of Oak.

## International career

Muntari made his debut for the Ghanaian national team on May 17, 2002 in a friendly match against Slovenia. At the 2006 World Cup in Germany he scored in the important 2-0 win against the Czech Republic, but was unable to play in the 2-1 win against the USA due to his second yellow card. Nevertheless, he played a huge part in Ghana reaching the round of 16, which they lost to Brazil.

In the opening match of the 2008 African Cup of Nations against Guinea, Muntari scored the decisive 2-1 goal for Ghana in extra time and took his national team to third place. He was not considered for the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations for disciplinary reasons.

During a test match before the 2010 World Cup against the Netherlands (1:4), there was a dispute on the field between Muntari and Hans Sarpei, who urged Muntari to play more as a team. At the 2010 World Cup, Muntari only played for thirteen minutes in the first two group matches against Australia. After he became abusive to the coach, he was briefly banned from the squad before the last group match. After Muntari apologized, however, this decision was reversed and he made a brief appearance in the round of 16 victory over the USA. In the quarter-final against Uruguay, he then made his first start and scored the interim 1:0. Nevertheless, Ghana were unfortunately eliminated in the penalty shootout and thus missed the chance to become the first African team to advance to a World Cup semi-final.

On 13 May 2014, he was called up to the squad of the Ghana national football team for the 2014 World Cup. After an argument with an association official, he was suspended indefinitely by the Ghana FA on 26 June 2014 and removed from the squad.

### Club

|rowspan="2"|Club|rowspan="2"|Season|colspan="3"|League|colspan="2"|National Cup|colspan="2"|Continental|colspan="2"|Other|colspan="2"|Total|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|rowspan="6"|Udinese|2002–03|Serie A|12|0|2|0|—|—|14|0|||
|2003–04|Serie A|23|0|4|0|1|0|—|28|0||||
|2004–05|Serie A|33|2|6|0|2|0|—|41|2||||
|2005–06|Serie A|29|3|0|0|11|0|—|40|3||||
|2006–07|Serie A|28|3|2|1|—|—|30|4|||||
|Portsmouth|2007–08|Premier League|29|4|4|1|—|—|33|5||||
|rowspan="5"|Internazionale|2008–09|Serie A|27|4|3|0|7|1|1|1|38|5|
|2009–10|Serie A|27|2|5|0|9|0|1|0|42|2|||
|2010–11|Serie A|8|1|1|0|3|0|1|0|13|1|||
|2011–12|Serie A|4|0|0|0|0|0|—|4|0||||
|Sunderland (loan)|2010–11|Premier League|9|1|0|0|—|—|9|1||||
|Milan (loan)|2011–12|Serie A|13|3|1|0|0|0|—|14|3|||
|rowspan="4"|Milan|2012–13|Serie A|15|1|1|0|2|1|—|18|2||
|2013–14|Serie A|26|5|0|0|8|1|—|34|6||||
|2014–15|Serie A|16|2|1|0|—|—|17|2|||||
|Al-Ittihad|2015–16|Saudi Professional League|18|2|3|0|5|1|3|0|29|3||
|Pescara|2016–17|Serie A|9|1|0|0|—|—|9|1||||
|Deportivo La Coruña|2017–18|La Liga|8|0|0|0|colspan="2"|—|colspan="2"|—|8|0||
|Albacete|2018–19|Segunda División|2|0|0|0|colspan="2"|—|colspan="2"|—|2|0||
|Hearts of Oak|2021–22|Ghana Premier League|11|1|3|0|0|0|1|0|15|1||

### International

|National team|Year|Apps|Goals||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|rowspan="13"|Ghana|2002|2|2|
|2003|1|0|||
|2004|5|1|||
|2005|6|2|||
|2006|11|3|||
|2007|8|2|||
|2008|12|4|||
|2009|6|2|||
|2010|6|2|||
|2011|10|1|||
|2012|8|1|||
|2013|5|2|||
|2014|4|0|||

- _Scores and results list the Ghana's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Muntari goal._

|Goal|Date|Venue|Opponent|Score|Result|Competition|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|20 June 2004|Baba Yara Stadium, Kumasi, Ghana||**1**–0|3–0|2006 FIFA World Cup qualification|
|2|14 November 2005|King Fahd International Stadium, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia||**2**–1|3–1|Friendly|
|3|8 October 2005|Estádio da Várzea, Praia, Cape Verde||**2**–0|4–0|2006 FIFA World Cup qualification|
|4|29 May 2006|Walkers Stadium, Leicester, England||**3**–0|4–1|Friendly|
|5|4 June 2006|Easter Road, Edinburgh, Scotland||**2**–0|3–1|Friendly|
|6|17 June 2006|RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne, Germany||**2**–0|2–0|2006 FIFA World Cup|
|7|7 February 2007|Wembley Stadium, London, England||**4**–0|4–1|Friendly|
|8|24 March 2007|UPC-Arena, Graz, Austria||**1**–1|1–1|Friendly|
|9|20 January 2008|Ohene Djan Stadium, Accra, Ghana||**2**–1|2–1|2008 Africa Cup of Nations|
|10|28 January 2008|Ohene Djan Stadium, Accra, Ghana||**2**–0|2–0|2008 Africa Cup of Nations|
|11|9 February 2008|Baba Yara Stadium, Kumasi, Ghana||**1**–0|4–2|2008 Africa Cup of Nations|
|12|22 June 2008|Ohene Djan Stadium, Accra, Ghana||**2**–0|2–0|2010 World Cup qualification|
|13|12 August 2009|Brisbane Road, London, England||**3**–0|4–1|Friendly|
|14|6 September 2009|Ohene Djan Stadium, Accra, Ghana||**1**–0|2–0|2010 World Cup qualification|
|15|3 March 2010|Koševo Stadium, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina||**1**–1|1–2|Friendly|
|16|2 July 2010|Soccer City, Johannesburg, South Africa||**1**–0|1–1|2010 FIFA World Cup|
|17|27 March 2011|Stade de la Revolution, Brazzaville, Congo||**3**–0|3–0|2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualification|
|18|1 June 2012|Baba Yara Stadium, Kumasi, Ghana||**1**–0|7–0|2014 World Cup qualification|
|19|7 June 2013|Al-Merrikh Stadium, Omdurman, Sudan||**3**–1|3–1|2014 World Cup qualification|
|20|15 October 2013|Baba Yara Stadium, Kumasi, Ghana||**5**–1|6–1|2014 World Cup qualification|

## Honours

**Portsmouth**
- FA Cup: 2007–08

**Inter Milan**
- Serie A: 2008–09, 2009–10
- Coppa Italia: 2009–10
- Supercoppa Italiana: 2008, 2010
- UEFA Champions League: 2009–10
- FIFA Club World Cup: 2010

**Hearts of Oak**
- President's Cup: 2022
- Ghanaian FA Cup: 2022
**Ghana U20**
- African Youth Championship runner-up: 2001
- FIFA U-20 World Cup runner-up: 2001
**Ghana**

- Africa Cup of Nations third place: 2008

**Individual**
- CAF Team of the Year: 2008
- Africa Cup of Nations Team of the Tournament: 2008
- Calcio Trade Ball Lifetime Achievement Award: 2022