Antoine Semenyo’s secret weapon? His unshakeable faith

The final whistle has blown on the 2024/25 Premier League season, and as the dust settles, one electrifying name echoes louder than most: Antoine Semenyo.

AFC Bournemouth’s relentless, marauding Ghanaian forward didn’t just play – he dominated, leaving defenders in his wake and fans on the edge of their seats.

We managed to corner the man himself for a chat, diving deep into the season that saw him explode onto the Premier League stage. Get ready to hear his incredible story, in his own words.

Bournemouth have reached incredible heights this season. What do you think has clicked this season?
I think it started from pre-season, really. I think everyone was just ready to go. Kind of repeat what we’d done the season before. And I think we’ve exceeded the expectations, really. So, I think it stems down to the philosophy working again: those intensive speeds and just that mentality. I think everyone’s mentality is top here and our place in the table shows that.

You speak about mentality. I think anyone who’s watched Bournemouth has maybe seen a change in your habits here, in particular at the Vitality Stadium. If they follow you on social media, they’ll know that you’re a man of faith. But we’ve seen you embrace it even more. We see some players before games praying their own ways, but I believe you take it a step further. You have a pastor who’s actually a season ticket holder?
Yeah, a season ticket holder. Do you know what’s so funny? I met him through one of the players. He used to be here, Junior Stanislas, and I was just looking for a church. And he passed me his number. I started speaking with him, I got a good vibe from him and he told me that he’s a season ticket holder. He comes to the games and watches us. And over time he started to build a little connection and I thought, I want to show my faith to the world. It’s important to me. So I proposed the idea of him praying with me before the before the games. Everyone’s intrigued to see what’s going down. But yeah, I just want to share my faith to the world.

Were you at all nervous about that? Because it’s such a huge demonstration of faith and at a crucial moment, just before a game?
So he would come over to this little part here, and then we just pray it out. Just give me that protection in the game, the Holy Spirit to lead me to goals. Keep me injury free. And yeah, it’s all off-the-cuff freestyle, really.

Does he comment about your game? Your style of play?
Yeah, he does. After the game, he messages me, “you are on fire! ” “you pushed that guy in the stands!”, and just little things like that just to make me laugh. But I think it all stems down to that prayer before the game, which is so important to me. And if I don’t do that, I don’t feel right for the game. So that has to be done before anything else is done.

Do you feel faith has been key to what we’ve seen from you this season?
100%. I think at the start of the season, I knew I wanted to beat the numbers I got and I sat down, prayed on it, made sure that I got the Holy Spirit with me as well. So when I’m on the pitch, I feel like I’m invincible. No one can touch me.

You’ve passed your second anniversary with the club, and surpassed your goals contribution from last season. Do you feel having that connection and relationship with God has taken you to this path?
Yeah, definitely. I think at the start of the season, my goal was to beat the numbers that I got, and I always sit down and have a long prayer, a little conversation, just saying what I want to do for the season, and it’s just coming into fruition now. So I know the Holy Spirit is working. God is working behind me as well. So I’m grateful.

For anyone who maybe isn’t religious or wasn’t brought up in a religious background, how did you come to that place where you felt like, ‘I need faith in my life, and faith is such a huge part of my journey as a footballer.
I think life experiences when I was young. I always used to go to church with my mum and dad and my little brother. So that’s just common. But I think when you have a couple of experiences you want to have someone to turn to, and I turn to him and he’s been great for me since. Every day, just being alive, being healthy. I’m just so grateful. So that’s the man I turned to regarding anything in life, whether it’s football or if it’s outside of football.

Tell us a little bit about how your move to Bournemouth came about?
I had a few clubs that were quite interested. But Bournemouth had kept track from that summer through to the World Cup, through to January, so their interest was really strong. They were watching me, checking up on me and that shows how good the club is. They were so interested. Yeah, I knew that my heart was set on joining Bournemouth even though I was having interest and I just never looked back from when I signed.

When you saw your name with £10 million pounds, what went through your mind? What went through your family’s mind?
They were thinking, “Premier League, like, wow, this is, this is crazy! Our son’s playing in the Premier League”. Yeah, it was a nice feeling. I think I knew it wasn’t over. I’m not saying I’ve made it yet. It’s just kind of cool. Now I’m playing in the Premier League. I need to get to where I want to get to. I want to get to the next level. How can I do that? I knew coming into the Premier League is going to be tough playing against tough players, fast players, intelligent players every week. So, obviously the first couple of months we were fighting against relegation, so that was a tough period. I’ve never really been involved in that, so that was tough. That training was intense. Every day. And when we found out we were safe, it was a relief because those training sessions, I couldn’t hack it anymore. But yeah, that was a tough period but we got through it, which we were grateful for. And then the next season started.

When you joined the club, your manager was Gary O’ Neil. The club then decided to make a change. Out he went, in came Andoni Iraola, who has completely changed things, not just here at the club but in the Premier League as well. When he first came in, things didn’t go according to plan, maybe. I guess the expectations people had set. It took, what, 10 games to get the first win. A lot of murmurings outside of the club. Like, “can he do it? Can he adjust to the Premier League? What was the environment like inside the dressing room?”
It was intense. I’ll use the word intense. It was it was tough, to be honest. There were so many games where we thought we could have got a result and obviously it didn’t go our way. And to be fair, we’ve got a good group so everyone was trying to be positive, but you could see on the outside it was tough. So there was a lot of pressure on us. Games were going by, we hadn’t got a point or hadn’t got three points, I should say. And yeah, it was, it was a tough, sticky period. But I think that we managed it well enough as a team.

What do you feel changed then? What was it when you were able to get that first win? And then all of a sudden did the players buy into his philosophy?
I’d like to think so. I think when you get a new philosophy, it doesn’t click within one training session. It takes a couple of sessions, a couple games as well. So, I think after the game, I think we beat Burnley and after that game, everything just started clicking, training started clicking, games started clicking. And yeah, that’s what you see now to this day.

What we see now is incredible stuff. Bournemouth were one of the surprise packages this season. You’ve surpassed your goal contributions from the last campaign. Some of the results you’ve got here at the Vitality Stadium, beating the likes of Arsenal, Manchester City, that emphatic win over Nottingham Forest, another team that has surprised many. Which win has stood out for you so far?
I think that Nottingham Forest one. I think there was so much pressure behind that game, not necessarily on us, just like the outside, The fans saying it could be the game of the year kind of thing. So, it’s kind of like saying, “okay, I’m looking forward to the weekend. It’s going to be good”. And I’ve got a few friends on the Forest team as well like Elanga, Callum Hudson-Odoi. I just wanted to kind of rub it in their faces, you know. So obviously beating them five-nil was a nice touch.

What a scoreline. What has the manager done then?
I think it’s just mentality. It comes down to mentality. I feel like the way the manager wants to play is with a lot of running, and you have to be mentally prepared to do that. If you’re not mentally prepared, it’s going to be tough.

Do you feel you’re out of the door if you’re not up to it?
Not out of the door, but you’ll just be out of the picture, kind of thing. There’s going to be people ahead of you. So it’s kind of like, in training, you see so many scenarios where there’s counter-attacks and you have to run 50, 60, 70 yards back to get the ball and then you have to run forward. We play those scenarios so much in training so when it comes to the game, it just feels like second nature. So, all those recovery runs you see in the game, all those runs in the 90th minute that you see us going forward, it’s all practised in training and we do so many scenarios that it just feels like second nature now.

As an individual, do you envision yourself playing in Europe soon?
I’d like to think so. I pray about it a lot and I’d like to think my performance shows I’m ready to take that next step, but I think it’s every player’s dream to play in Europe, so why not?

Lastly, what was it like that first time putting on the Ghana shirt?
I felt that pressure, to be honest. There’s a lot of pressure from the fans that, you know, we’ve got a good team, we want to do well. And I agree with them, we have a very good team, so there was a lot of pressure behind it. I think we needed to beat Uruguay to get through and we obviously lost. It was just frustrating really. You look in the stands, all the fans are frustrated, angry, cussing out everyone. And that’s just the country in a nutshell. They just love football.

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