FIU scorer Stephen Afrifa is up to speed as the Panthers’ top scoring threat
It never looks like FIU men’s soccer star Stephen Afrifa is going very fast.
But he is.
Afrifa — who has five goals in six games to rank tied for second nationally in tallies per contest — is the Panthers’ fastest player by far, according to coach Kyle Russell. Yet Afrifa often catches opponents by surprise with his seemingly effortless sprints.
“It’s my body shape,” Afrifa said. “Seeing it on film, my arms are very long, and it just looks like I’m gliding. It looks like I’m not trying, and then I just gallop past people.”
Afrifa is not just speedy on the pitch. His rise as a pro prospect has been just as quick.
As a freshman in 2019, Afrifa produced just three goals and three assists in 18 games.
Indeed, Afrifa was already on the FIU roster when Russell was hired on Feb. 21, 2020.
Russell quickly identified Afrifa’s talent, but …
“He lacked drive,” Russell said. “He was raw and needed a ton of polish. Some of our first conversations as a coaching staff were, ‘Is this kid going to put forth the effort required to be really good?’
“We knew he had tools. But we see a ton of kids who have tools but not the commitment. There was a big question around Stephen’s name.”
Less than one month after Russell got the job, the COVID pandemic shut everything down. That turned out to be a huge advantage for Afrifa.
“I knew I had the ability to play with top-level college guys,” Afrifa said. “It was just a maturing process.
“COVID gave us the extra time to train without playing games. I took that time to understand what I needed to work on, and that’s what I did.”
Afrifa, 21, is no stranger to hard labor.
He’s seen his mother, Theresa Nuroh, work 9-to-5 in a Toronto factory … only to get home and cook every day for her family of five. He has also seen his father, Samuel Afrifa, work two jobs every day, going from his janitorial position to doing laundry at a hospital.
The family, now based in Toronto with roots in the African nation of Ghana, also includes Stephen’s sister, Winnifred Koduah, 26, who just graduated college; and Simon Afrifa, who is Stephen’s identical twin brother and fellow FIU forward.
Stephen, who is older than Simon by five minutes, said he gets his values from his parents.
“They showed us the importance of hard work,” he said. “The sacrifices our parents made have given me extra motivation to help them out to repay them for everything they have done for us.”
The beauty of his parents’ sacrifice, Afrifa said, is that they never complain, and that’s a lesson he takes to the pitch.
“If I get hit, I get up and walk away,” Stephen said. “You won’t find me complaining often.”
There’s not much to complain about overall for the Panthers, who are ranked 21st in the nation. FIU (4-2-0) has already knocked off 18th-ranked North Carolina, 2-1, on Sept. 3, thanks to two goals by Afrifa in that game at Chapel Hill. FIU also beat 10th-ranked Tulsa, 3-0, with the help of two more Afrifa goals.
Afrifa is serving as a mentor to Simon, who has no goals and one assist in six games this year, including one start.
Simon admits he didn’t take academics seriously while in high school. As a result, he had to go to a junior college in Louisburg, North Carolina.
Last year, Simon scored 15 goals and added one assist in 13 games at Louisburg, earning his scholarship to FIU.
“I floated around in high school,” Simon said. “But since I’ve been in college, I’ve had nothing less than 3.0 grade-point average.”
Russell said that part of his recruitment of Simon was impressing upon him the “once-in-a- lifetime” opportunity for the brothers to play on the same college team.
Fourteen years ago, that happened to the Russell brothers as senior Kyle, sophomore Alex and freshman Joey were all centerbacks on the 2008 Coastal Carolina squad.
“I still smile when I look back at the photos with my brothers in 2008,” Russell said.
Ironically, Stephen and Simon have vastly different personalities.
Stephen has never been to a high school or college party. Simon, meanwhile, is a life-of-the-party sort who makes friends easily.
On the pitch, both of them are fast, but Stephen beat Simon by a step the last time they raced a couple of years ago.
“His has professional-level speed,” Russell said of Stephen. “He is able to do things at full speed at such a high technical level … it’s impressive.”
Added Simon: “Stephen has always been fast. People say he is like a snake because he is slippery and smooth getting past defenders.”
