Antoine Semenyo is in Ghana's squad for the summer's World Cup in the USA, a selection that carries him from academy rejection and a year out of the game to football's biggest stage. For a player who was once turned away by a string of clubs in England, it is the moment his route back to the sport reaches its highest point.
That is why his name is drawing interest now. Ghana play England on June 23rd, and Semenyo's place in the squad adds a personal thread to a match that already has plenty of weight. Born and brought up in England, he still speaks about Ghana as the obvious international home, and the route to that decision runs through his family, not just his football.
Semenyo went to academies at Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea, Fulham and Millwall between the ages of 11 and 15, with Crystal Palace his last trial at 15. He was not signed by any of them, gave up football for a year and focused on school, before former Leeds United coach Dave Hockaday coaxed him back into the sport while Hockaday was head of male sport at South Gloucestershire and Stroud College. Bristol City signed him in 2017, and he later had loans to Bath City, Newport and Sunderland before forcing his way into the picture.
His progress was steady rather than instant. He scored his first Romans goal in 2018 and later struck a hat-trick in Bristol City's 8-1 Somerset Cup quarter-final win over Welton Rovers at Twerton Park. By the 2020/21 season he was playing 50 matches and scoring seven times, and the following season he produced 20 goals and assists in 32 Championship matches. That was enough to bring Ghana in May 2022, when he was called up for AFCON qualifying and made his debut against Madagascar.
The part of the story that makes his choice feel settled is the one he tells about home. Semenyo has said his parents are Ghana through and through and never really raised England as an option. He said the conversation about England came with life in England, but it was never really a conversation for him, and Ghana arrived when he was 19 or 20, at a point when he was never going to turn it down.
He has also described watching Ghana at the World Cup as something his whole family would build a day around, with mum, dad, uncles, aunties and cousins gathering at one house to watch, celebrate and shout through every match. This summer, he is no longer watching from that room. He is in the squad, and the next question is not why Ghana chose him, but how much of the tournament he gets to shape once the games begin.
