Bechem United

Bechem United go into the season chasing the kind of run that has already brought them a Confederation Cup place once before, and Nana Fosu Gyeabour Park will need to hold its nerve if the Hunters are to push near the top of the Ghana Premier League table again.

The club's academy is the part of the operation people in Bechem talk about first: it has sent a string of players through to the national set-up and abroad, among them Samuel Tetteh, who went on to appear for Red Bull Salzburg and Adanaspor. More recently it was Hafiz Wontah Konkoni doing the finishing, 15 goals in the 2022–23 season before a move to Young Africans SC — the kind of return that gets a striker noticed well beyond Ghana.

The FA Cup remains the club's defining moment. Bechem United beat Okwawu United 2–1 in the 2015–16 final at Cape Coast Stadium. Promotion to the top flight had come earlier still, in 2010–11, when they won their zone of the Division One League and left the lower divisions behind for good.

None of it carries the edge of the meetings with Berekum Chelsea. That derby is where Bechem United's season is measured most sharply, a fixture with no love lost between two clubs who sit close enough on the map to make every result personal.

For now the task is the same one that faces most clubs outside Ghana's traditional powers: stay clear of trouble in the league and give the academy pipeline another player worth selling on.