Antoine Semenyo might be the best “how did we get here so fast?” story on this list. A few years ago, he was still building his reputation at Bristol City and Bournemouth. Now he is a Manchester City winger, Ghana’s most dangerous attacking player, and one of the biggest reasons the Black Stars have any real upside in a brutal World Cup group.
The rise has been dramatic. Manchester City signed him from Bournemouth in January, after a first half of the Premier League season in which he had 10 goals and three assists. Pep Guardiola praised his ability to play on either wing, use both feet, play through the middle, and attack with pace — basically the full modern-forward checklist. Transfermarkt now values him at $88.2m, which puts him in rare territory for a Ghanaian attacker.
Semenyo is powerful, direct, two-footed, and a little unpredictable. He can run in behind, carry the ball through contact, press, shoot early, or turn a broken transition into a real chance. That matters for Ghana because they probably are not going to control long stretches against England or Croatia. They need players who can make something happen quickly, and Semenyo is the clearest version of that in the squad.
He is also arriving with momentum at exactly the right time. Semenyo scored the only goal in Manchester City’s FA Cup final win over Chelsea on May 16, giving him a major Wembley moment less than a month before the World Cup. That kind of thing may not directly translate to Ghana, but it matters for confidence. For a player whose career has been one long climb from the lower leagues to the highest level, scoring a cup-final winner for Manchester City is a pretty loud sign that the stage is not too big for him.
Ghana will need that version of him. Their group is England, Croatia and Panama, and their journey to the World Cup has been a bumpy ride. Otto Addo was fired 72 days before the tournament, Carlos Queiroz came in late, and Ghana are trying to pull together a team that has attacking talent but real concerns behind it.
Ghana are not one of the tournament favorites, and they may be flawed enough that even a great Semenyo tournament is not enough. But if they are going to bother England, scare Croatia, and actually get out of the group, he probably has to be the one who changes the math. Kudus, Jordan Ayew, Iñaki Williams and Abdul Fatawu all give Ghana options, but Semenyo is the player who feels most capable of turning one transition, one loose ball, or one defender caught flat-footed into the moment that keeps Ghana alive.