He’s proud to call SA home
GHANAIAN-BORN AMERICAN IS STILL BUSY FINDING HIS FEET AT CAPE TOWN CITY
There are still things I need to improve, but so far so good for me.
Surrounded by plenty of firepower at Cape Town City, 21-year-old striker Nana Akosah-Bempah wants to use that to his advantage.
The young attacker is competing for a start in Benni McCarthy’s rich striking force, which includes the likes of Siphelele Mthembu, Evans Rusike and Tokelo Rantie, but that doesn’t faze him.
“No, if you’re going to think or feel you are sidelined, then that is already a negative mindset to begin with. For me, I am learning from players who have played at the highest level.
Firstly, our coach, who has been there and done it, then Siphelele, Rusike and Rantie now, who has just signed for the club. So I have to learn as much as I can, it’s a dream for a guy like me to learn and play with guys like them and I can only get better.
“I also see them as my competition and I feel I can displace them, I just have to fight every day and learn from them, but when I do, I will use it against them,” chuckles Nana.
Born in the US to Ghanaian parents, Akosa-Bempha moved to South Africa 12 years ago. He describes his first couple of months in a foreign country as difficult, but as a young kid, he quickly made friends at school.
His love for football was mostly inherited from his dad, but he says it was tough, because
the sport at his school was not really taken seriously. He started playing football with friends, only to realise later it was a talent he was born with and that he should pursue a career in the game.
It was at the now-dissolved Mpumalanga Black Aces where he got his big break before John Comittis bought the club, changing its name to Cape Town City and moving to the Mother City.
After all of that, the striker says he only wants to focus on going forward, even though the road was bumpy and he is proud to call South Africa his home after all these years, even though he visits the US now and then during the off-season.
“I have been in South Africa since 2006, and my school was not a football school. It was tough at first, but you know, when you are young, it’s easier to make friends. So I just adjusted and now I feel like South Africa is home and I’m proud of the country. I started playing football as a hobby, but when I moved to Aces that’s when I realised this was my destiny,” he adds.
“It’s been tough, I signed for Black Aces, then a couple of months later we moved to Cape Town. It’s been up and down, but I think I’ve found my feet now and I’ve found a coach who believes in me. It’s only upwards from here.”
So far so good, Akosah-Bempha reckons. However, he is a young man with big dreams and is very ambitious. He wants to do more
for himself and the club. And working hard at training to improve his game is the only way he believes will see him score 20 goals or more in one season.
“There are still things I need to improve on, but so far so good for me and I am happy with the way I have been playing.”
With only three substitute appearances so far this season, the striker played the full 90 minutes during the club’s reserve team’s opening game in the Diski Challenge when they beat Highlands Park 3-0.
However, he played a huge role in the club’s road to the final of the MTN8 when he stepped up to take the first penalty against Mamelodi Sundowns, which they eventually won 4-2 to set up a second successive Wafa-Wafa final with SuperSport United at the Moses Mabhida on September 29.
Akosah-Bempah and his Cape City team-mates will be looking to bounce back to winning ways when they face Pirates at Orlando Stadium tomorrow, after they suffered an embarrassing 4-1 defeat at home to Chiefs.