Ghanaian journalist Michael Oti Adjei speaks to former junior star Nii Odartey Lamptey - who Pel? once compared to himself - about why his career has stalled, and why others like him have failed to turn the Black Stars into a World force:

Sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday when Ghana became football world champions for the first time.

That day, 30 August 1991, in the Italian city of Florence, will always be etched in the memory of those who witnessed it.

Here was a group of supposed under-17s playing a brand of football that thrilled everyone who saw them.

I was then a tiny 13-year-old crazy about football, but the display by my compatriots in Italy skyrocketed my interest in the game to fanatical levels.

And like many Ghanaians who followed the team throughout the tournament in Italy, I was convinced this was the beginning of greatness for Ghanaian football at the world level.

How wrong we have been proved. True, Ghana have gone on to play some remarkable football at under-20 level and in fact won Africa's first football medal (bronze) at the Olympic Games in 1992.

But the expected benefits from the brilliant show at the '91 tournament and subsequent editions - including another victory in 1995 - have not yet come.

Qualification for the senior World Cup still eludes Ghana, and they have not won the African Cup of Nations since 1982.

More worryingly, many of the players who glittered and glowed in Italy, Japan and Ecuador have woefully failed to live up to their promise.

Nii Odartey Lamptey is the perfect example of a player who flattered us at the junior level, only to fall by the wayside.

At 16 many, including the great Pel?, considered him the most promising talent in world football.

Rules were changed in Belgium so that he could make his league debut at 15, he scored some wonderful goals and even went on to become top scorer at Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in his first season there.

Then everything went wrong. Stints at Coventry City and Aston Villa in England did not help as he could not hold down a regular place.

To get such high praise from Pel? was wonderful, but it had its negative side

Nii Odartey Lamptey, instead of becoming the greatest Ghanaian player many expected him to become, he has become the most travelled, playing in as many as seven European countries - England, Holland, Belgium, Turkey, Italy, Germany and Portugal as well as South America with Union Santa Fe in Argentina and now Asia, with Shandong in China.

Lamptey himself concedes things have not gone well for him. In fact he comes across as a man fully aware he has not been able to fulfil his own potential.

However, he refutes the assertion that he, like many of his colleagues from the 1991 winning team have not progressed because they cheated their way into the under-17 level by under-declaring their ages.

"In any case, football is a state of mind and that is why the likes of Lothar Matthaeus and my former coach at Coventry, Gordon Strachan, all played well into their late 30s," said Lamptey.

Once I couldn't meet people's high expectations, I was considered a failure, said Nii Odartey Lamptey.

So what went wrong in his case?

"When Pele said I could go on to become like him, it was a great honour for me".

"Everybody knows how great he is and to get such high praise from him was wonderful, but it had its negative side - everywhere I went I was supposed to live up to very high standards".

"Once I couldn't meet people's expectations, I was considered a failure".

"In England, too, my career wasn't helped by the constant call-ups to the various national teams, both junior and senior".

"I am not saying it led to my downfall, but every time I went home to play I had to spend about three weeks trying to regain my first team place."

There are those, Ghana's current FA boss Ben Koufie included, who would disagree with Lamptey on the over-age issue.

He has promised to put an end to what he calls cheating at junior levels - he says it is responsible for Ghana's poor recent form.

Bear in mind, however, that the age group competitions have brought immense benefits to the players, agents and clubs who profited from the interest shown in them from Europe.

But for those competitions, one wonders where the likes of Bayern Munich's Sammy Kuffour, Udinese's Mohammed Gargo - team-mates of Lamptey in 1991 - and other high-profile Ghanaians would have been and what financial state they would be in now. - BBC