By Liz Robins and Marc Santora NY Times – Ghanaians who have settled in the Bronx — there are more than 16,000, according to the city — find themselves with a World Cup conundrum in the opening match, when Ghana meets the United States. Root for their beloved Black Stars? Or for the country that they now call home?
Ghana has knocked the United States out of the last two World Cups. For some in the Bronx, there is no debate. “We are going to beat them again, no matter what,” said Kwame Bonsu, the manager of Papaye Restaurant off East 183rd Street, a popular Ghanaian spot, which will broadcast the game on June 16. “It’s a done deal. Because we are better than them.”
Sam Ansah, a Ghanaian-American accountant who organizes regular weekend pickup games, plans to stop by Papaye but will mostly watch the World Cup at home with a group of Ghanaian friends. “We yell, we shout, we give our opinions, even if the coach doesn’t hear,” he said.
At 42, Mr. Ansah is both a player and an organizer of the games that begin at dawn on Saturdays and Sundays at the Macombs Dam Park turf field, across from Yankee Stadium. For three hours, about 50 men crowd the sideline to play, some of them former college players or former stars from Ghana in their 30s and 40s. It’s a popular pitch in the summer, with youth games that follow.
Some of the Ghanaian players said they planned to gather at Dred, a barbershop off East 174th Street, to watch the game while getting a haircut (a dangerous proposition). For others, the outcome of the opening match is a win-win.
“Those of us who are citizens, we are on the borderline,” Mr. Ansah said, adding that the United States team’s past could represent a psychological hindrance. “They are overdetermined,” Mr. Ansah said.
Papaye Restaurant 2300 Grand Concourse, Bronx; (718) 676-0771.
