Chile-Ghana Friendly At PPL Park: Asamoah Gyan Takes International Break Until September

Asamoah Gyan's weekend was full of surprises for Ghanian soccer fans. The striker wrote a letter to the country's football association (FA) informing the national team's leadership that he would be retiring "indefinitely" from international play.

The 26-year-old has claimed that he has not fully recovered psychologically from missing a crucial penalty in the 120th minute of Ghana's loss to Uruguay in the 2010 World Cup Quarterfinals. Gyan went on to miss another crucial penalty, this time against Zambia in the Africa Cup of Nations Semi-finals.

The Ghanian FA quickly went into damage control mode, racing to reach Gyan before he fully made up his mind of the letter based decision. After some deliberation, vice president Jordan Anagbla and other members of the FA were able to convince Gyan to come back to the national team, although it won't be until September.

Al-Ain's forward (loaned from Sunderland of the English Premier League) was supposed to be one of the stars of the Chile-Ghana international friendly at PPL Park.

The February 29th game will still - as of right now - feature such Chilean and Ghanaian stars as Andre Ayew (Marseille, France), Michael Essien (Chelsea), John Mensah (Lyon), and Matías Fernandez (Sporting Clube de Portugal), Eduardo Vargas (Napoli), Humberto Suazo (Monterrey, Mexico) and Barcelona's Alexis Sanchez.