From Mohammed Salisu at Monaco to Alexander Dijku at Spartak Moscow to Jerome Opoku at İstanbul Başakşehir, we’re seeing quite a few Ghanaian center backs impose their skills overseas, and yet another player who’s doing so is Alhassan “Lalas” Abubakar.
Born in Kumasi, Abubakar was raised in Accra and started playing for the University of Ghana as well as Ghana’s U20s before eventually attracting a scholarship offer from the University of Dayton.
Abubakar headed across the Atlantic and started a new adventure in the United States, where he has remained ever since, impressing for the Flyers before eventually prompting Columbus Crew to select him with the fifth pick of the 2017 MLS SuperDraft.
It was here in Ohio where Abubakar launched his MLS career, making 31 appearances before dropping down the pecking order following the exit of Gregg Berhalter and the arrival of new manager Caleb Porter.
Desperate for regular minutes, Abubakar decided to make the move to Colorado Rapids in May 2019, initially on loan but soon made permanent.
Abubakar excelled in Colorado, winning the club’s Defender of the Year award in his first two seasons and showcasing his excellent reactions and bulky physicality. And similarly to others like Sergio Ramos and Renato Paiva, Abubakar impressed in terms of his goal-scoring ability, racking up 9 goals and 2 assists in 136 appearances before eventually departing for FC Dallas in December 2024. But whilst Abubakar has been gone for over a decade, he still makes an effort to return to Ghana every offseason and spend time with his family and friends.
“It hasn’t been easy, especially with my family,” stated Abubakar in an exclusive Citi Sports interview. “Now that my mom can come and go, it’s easier. But also, I’m a Muslim, and we do Ramadan and Eid, so I always say that those are the times of the year that I miss Ghana the most. Since I came here 11 years ago, I’ve never had an experience like doing Ramadan in Ghana, I’ve never had that. So that’s what I miss most, especially during Ramadan, you want to be around family and celebrate, and I haven’t done that since I was living in Ghana.”
Abubakar has already played over 200 times in MLS and helped Columbus and Colorado reach the playoffs, and he’s looking to do the same with FC Dallas, who sit 10th in the table, level on 38 points with ninth-placed San Jose, two points behind Colorado, one above Real Salt Lake, and two above Houston Dynamo. Unlike the other sides (apart from Salt Lake), Dallas have three games left to be played, rather than two.
They’ll be seeking to finish in the top nine spots and qualify for the playoffs, and they’ll be counting on Abubakar to continue his impressive performances in defense.After playing the full 90 in 10 straight matches, Abubakar has come off the bench in Dallas’ last three matches.
He’s played 26 times in MLS and two in the U.S. Open Cup, and whether coming off the bench or starting, he’s delivered with consistently impressive displays. It is evident that he has found the right environment in Texas and is enjoying himself both on and off the pitch.
“I like to get some rest, watch soccer games, and play video games at home, I love playing Call of Duty with my teammates, we’ll get on and chat and then play together. I just love it, especially when my mom wasn’t here, my brother and I would just get rest after I got home from practice, and I’d just hop on to play some video games afterwards. Now that my mom is here, sometimes, we’ll go to the mall on the weekends, but yeah, I don’t do too much.”
At nearly 31 years of age, Lalas Abubakar still has several objectives left to be ticked off his bucket list, like winning the first trophy of his professional career and earning a maiden call-up to the Black Stars’ senior team. But whilst his number-one priority is leading Dallas to the postseason and challenging for their first-ever MLS Cup title, he’s also focused on bringing his daughter and wife to the States and starting a new life together.
“Initially I was living alone, but my mom is here to visit, and my brothers moved here with me. However, my wife and my daughter are still back home in Ghana. My daughter is a US citizen, but my wife, I’m still working on her immigration stuff. Hopefully, they can join me very soon. My daughter is one year and two months old and has started walking already. The last time I saw her was December, and it’s been hard, man. I always tell my teammates, ‘My biggest fear is when I go home in the off-season and I try to hug her and she runs away from me, that will break my heart if she doesn’t remember me, but I gotta deal with it.”
By:Zach Lowy
