Lennard Adjetey Sowah (born 23 August 1992) is a German professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a left-back for

TuS Dassendorf TuS Dassendorf is a German association football club from the municipality of Dassendorf, Schleswig-Holstein. The club's greatest success has been promotion to the tier five Oberliga Hamburg in 2013 and winning the league in each of its first f ...

. He has previously played for

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

Hamburger SV II Hamburger SV II are the reserve team of German association football club Hamburger SV. Until 2005 the team played as Hamburger SV Amateure. The team has qualified for the first round of the DFB-Pokal, the German Cup, on five occasions. They cur ...

FC Vestsjælland FC Vestsjælland, also known as FCV Vikings, was a professional Danish association football club that played in the Danish 1st Division until its closure in 2015. They played their home matches at Harboe Arena Slagelse in Slagelse, which has a cap ...

, Heart of Midlothian and

Cracovia Cracovia is the Latin name for the Polish city of Kraków (Cracow). It may refer to: * Cracovia SC, a football club in Australia * Cracovia (vodka) ''Cracovia'' is Polish brand of vodka Vodka ( pl, wódka , russian: водка , sv, vodka ) ...

Club career

Portsmouth

Sowah originally came to England after receiving interest from

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

. He left Arsenal and joined

, where he forced himself onto the periphery of the first team under both

Paul Hart Paul Anthony Hart (born 4 May 1953) is an English association football, football manager, coach, and former professional player who made 567 appearances in the English Football League, Football League as a Defender (association football), def ...

and

Avram Grant Avraham "Avram" Grant ( he, אברהם "אברם" גרנט; born Avraham Granat; ) is an Israeli professional football manager. He has spent the majority of his career coaching and managing in Israel, winning a number of national league and cup ...

. He was rewarded with the squad number 46 and made his first appearance on the Portsmouth bench in the League Cup win against

Carlisle United Carlisle United Football Club ( , ) is a professional association football club based in Carlisle, Cumbria, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They have played their home games at Brunton Par ...

. He was also named on the bench in

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

games against

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English footbal ...

and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

. Sowah made his

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

debut in April 2010 against Blackburn Rovers, as a substitute for Richard Hughes. His next appearance came in a 0–0 draw against

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, ...

, in which he played the whole of the second half. On 18 April 2010, playing against

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

, Sowah became the first player born after the Premier League was formed to start a Premier League match. He was born eight days after the first Premier League matches were played. Sowah's Premier League appearances came as Portsmouth were preparing for the

2010 FA Cup Final The 2010 FA Cup Final was the 129th final of the FA Cup, the world's oldest domestic football cup competition. The match took place on 15 May 2010, at Wembley Stadium, London, in front of a crowd of over 88,000 and a British television audience ...

against Chelsea, however he was an injury doubt for the final and ultimately did not feature.

Hamburger SV

On 6 July 2010, Sowah returned to his hometown and signed for Hamburger SV on a free transfer.

Millwall (loan)

Having not made a single senior appearance for Hamburger SV, he signed on loan for Championship side Millwall until the end of the season on 31 January 2012, his first return to English football since his release from Portsmouth. He failed to make an appearance for the club during his loan spell.

FC Vestsjælland

On 22 June 2014, Sowah signed a one-year contract with the Danish club

Return to Hamburger SV

On 29 July 2016, he returned to Hamburger SV signing a one-year contract with the reserves.

Scotland

Sowah moved to Scottish club Hamilton Academical in October 2016. He made his debut on 15 October 2016, in a 2–2 draw away to

Partick Thistle Partick Thistle Football Club are a professional association football, football club from Glasgow, Scotland. Despite their name, the club are based at Firhill Stadium in the Maryhill area of the city, and have not played in Partick since 1908. ...

. In December 2016 it was announced that Sowah would be offered a new contract by the club, however he left the club at the end of his contract on 3 January 2017. Sowah then signed for another Scottish club, Heart of Midlothian, on a contract due to run until the end of the 2016–17 season. Sowah was released by Hearts at the end of his contract in June 2017.

Cracovia

On 20 June 2017 he signed a contract with Ekstraklasa side

Return to Hamilton

In June 2018, he signed again with Hamilton Academical. He left Hamilton in May 2019.

International career

Sowah was born to Ghanaian parents in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

and as such, has both German and

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

ian citizenship. He has represented Germany at under-16, under-18 level and under-19 level. The Ghanaian FA also declared interest in having him represent their

under-20 Junior is a category of athletics in which athletes compete under the age of 20 years. Countries all around the world compete in athletics. World Junior Athletics Competitions are held every two years which contain the best junior competitors in ...

side.

Career statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sowah, Lennard 1992 births Living people German men's footballers Men's association football defenders German sportspeople of Ghanaian descent Footballers from Hamburg German expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in England Expatriate men's footballers in Denmark Expatriate men's footballers in Scotland Expatriate men's footballers in Poland FC St. Pauli players Portsmouth F.C. players Arsenal F.C. players Hamburger SV players Millwall F.C. players FC Vestsjælland players Hamilton Academical F.C. players Heart of Midlothian F.C. players KS Cracovia players TuS Dassendorf players Regionalliga players Premier League players Danish Superliga players Scottish Professional Football League players Ekstraklasa players Oberliga (football) players Germany men's youth international footballers German expatriate sportspeople in Scotland German expatriate sportspeople in Poland German expatriate sportspeople in Denmark