It struck me that I ought to explain a little bit about why we cheer for the teams we do. Well, in part, it’s because I thought we ought to, and I’m the one of us most capable of complex thought and logic. But also, each team has a special something that captures part of what I love about life, and part of what makes you who you are.

So periodically (like during international breaks, long summer holidays, or say, global pandemics that completely alter everything we understand about our lives and ourselves), I want to introduce you to the teams we are tied to.

Our tenth team to meet is a team that embodies the hope and optimism in a new vision of the future, Ghana’s Legon Cities FC.

Wherefore Legon?

Across the Atlantic, there’s hope and opportunity. That’s what your European relatives thought before they left Scotland, Norway, Serbia, and Germany (via Russia) to come to the United States.

They had hope because others were taken and brought across the same water without hope. Our opportunities were paid for, in part, with the blood and pain of others from Africa.

Centuries later, we can find opportunities for both ourselves and some of those most harmed by slavery. Africa is a continent of hope. Ghana is a country of invention and imagination. Legon is a city where the future comes to be real.

I studied in Legon during college. I made new and vital friends, read a lot of great literature, studied with excellent professors and poets, and taught amazing students. I enjoyed it so much, I did it again 5 years later. Legon is a special place. It is the future of a growing nation, and will help shape the future of our changing world.

Who is Legon Cities?

A few years ago Ghanaian football was in trouble. Leaders in the country shamelessly solicited bribes. The league was plagued with allegations of cheating. And money for investment was scarce.

Enter Richard K. Atikpo. A well heeled oil tycoon, he swooped in to buy Wa All Stars, a northern team whose prior owner was in a heap of trouble, and move them to the Accra area, rebranding them Legon Cities.

In doing so he sought to build and brand a new kind of team in Ghanaian football. A team with as much flash and flair as a rock concert and as much ambition as the biggest sides in the game.

How are we Legon Cities?

It’s not that we have flash and flair. It’s not that we’re changing the game. But when the future comes to bear, Legon Cities is a symbol of what we aspire to do.

When you have to face the future, approach it as an opportunity to seize not a challenge to be feared.

Ghana is going to shape the coming century. All of Africa will too. Our countries will become more diverse, more connected with the wider world. When they do, we ought to be Legon Cities. Accept the change and make the most of it.

We can say that we’ve backed Legon Cities from their start, even though that start was just a year ago. They’ll be near the future of football. I hope we are near the future of our world too.