Last Sunday, Tennessee Tempo FC beat LA10 FC in Irvine, CA, to win the 2025 Spring United Premier Soccer League national championship. Winning the UPSL, a national amateur league unofficially in the fifth tier of the United States soccer pyramid with hundreds of teams across multiple divisions, is a huge accomplishment for the club from Murfreesboro, TN, which have been chasing after silverware for close to half a decade.
One Tempo official who celebrated the win is Kwadwo Poku, the New York City FC cult hero who spent two of the team’s first seasons playing under the Yankee Stadium lights as an attacking midfielder, scoring five goals and adding seven assists in 34 appearances across all competitions. Poku has been with Tempo since the start. He’s one of the club’s co-founders, and currently serves as the organization’s academy director and head coach of the U19 team.
While Poku wasn’t in Irvine for the win, head coach and fellow co-founder Gift Ndam was quick to thank him after the game.
“Poku, I love you, brother. This whole thing doesn’t start without you,” Ndam told TheCup.us correspondent Kathryne Padilla, before going on to list off even more names of players whom he wanted to thank. “The guys, the first group that took this team to the national finals in Columbus (in 2022), they paved the way for this to happen today, and I’m so grateful for each and every one of them.”
Poku’s journey
After Poku left NYCFC in 2016, being traded to The Miami FC in the North American Soccer League, his career slowed down. He made an impact in Miami, including scoring the game-winner against Atlanta United in a 2017 US Open Cup cupset, but after the NASL lost sanctioning, he bounced around Europe before returning to Florida with the Tampa Bay Rowdies.
By 2021, Poku found himself back in Nashville, the city he had first found himself in when he arrived from Ghana in 2010. Enter longtime friend Gift Ndam, who approached Poku with the proposal to start a soccer team.
Kwadwo Poku Goal for New York City FC vs Toronto FC
“I personally think in Murfreesboro, on the outskirts of Nashville, there is still a market for a small, low-league team to play in,” Ndam said in 2023. While the city had seen the rise of Nashville SC all the way from the NPSL (yes, it counts) to MLS, the lower leagues had struggled to find a consistent team.
Gift wanted to give back, and Poku could help be a part of it.
“He always wanted to build something here in Nashville,” Poku told US Soccer in an article back in 2023. “Gift was always someone I could count on, and he always had this dream of doing something in this city.”
With his own son now in school and his pro career over, he wanted to stay home, and spending time in Nashville made total sense. And so it was, the team under its original name, Beaman United FC, was born and quickly joined the United Premier Soccer League ahead of its Spring 2022 season.
The UPSL has both spring and fall seasons, which is perfect for different types of players. In college? The spring season runs through late spring up until the end of summer. Need somewhere to play in the winter? The fall season starts right around autumn and ends in the dead of winter, extending into March the following year if you make it all the way to the national title.
Seth Poku lifts Tempo to finals
In previous years, Poku played with Tempo during the season. But this season, the 33-year-old has led the organization’s academy — when he isn’t popping up at Yankee Stadium to celebrate his former team’s tenth anniversary.
On the field, his younger brother Seth Poku and a high-powered offense helped the Tempo keep the beat going. A team that featured young college players, international team players like Belize national team winger Horace Avila Jr., and former professionals like former Crown Legacy midfielder Brandon Parrish and former Tampa Bay Rowdies midfielder Dominic Oduro (not to be confused with the former Houston Dynamo player) helped form a high-powered offense.
Seth Poku in action for Tennessee Tempo | Courtesy Tennessee Tempo FC
The team ran through the UPSL Kentucky-Tennessee Conference, scoring 48 goals and only allowing seven to finish second with a record of 10W-0D-1L. Two blowout wins in the playoffs, with a goal from the 28-year-old Seth Poku in each game, gave Tempo the Conference trophy and a spot in the 32-team national playoff bracket.
From there, three straight shutouts secured the team a spot in the national final four, which was to be played at the home of the USL Championship’s Orange County SC.
In the semifinal, Tempo and Chicago Nation FC played to a scoreless draw in regulation time. The game went into extra time, when Nation scored late in the first extra half and also saw a red card. In the last five minutes of the extra time, Tempo scored twice to win and advance. Former pro Dominic Oduro (Charleston Battery, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Memphis 901 FC) tied it in the 114th minute, then Souleymane Balde scored the game-winning goal in the 116th minute. A short-handed Chicago Nation had a chance to tie the game with two minutes left in extra time, but they hit the post, and the match finished as a 2-1 win for Tempo.
The national championship game against LA10 FC, owned by Italian football legend Alessandro Del Piero, saw a highly aggressive yet scoreless game for most of its runtime. In the 86th minute, Oduro scored another clutch goal when he capitalized on a rebound in the box and shot the game-winner to give his team its first-ever UPSL title.
Kathryne Padilla
Tennessee Tempo close before
Tempo has been close to winning national championships multiple times in their short existence.
In Spring 2022, the team, then known as Beaman United, reached the UPSL national finals in only their first season. The regular season saw the group finish 8-1-1, with 52 goals in 10 games, and Seth Poku himself accounting for 12 goals.
Poku himself also got on the scoresheet, scoring one regular-season goal and another three in the playoffs. Beaman finished the UPSL season top of the Kentucky-Tennessee Conference that year, and eventually won the 2022 KY-TN Spring Conference Playoff Championship.
After beating Queensboro FC II, 4-3, in the semifinal behind a game-winner by Seth Poku, the team lost to a Paul Caligiuri-led Orange County FC, 3-1, in the national championship game at Historic Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus.
Earlier that same summer, Beaman had a different opportunity at a national championship when it entered its first National Amateur Cup. In regional play, the team went undefeated in five games over three days to win the USASA Region III Amateur Cup, with Poku himself taking part. That win would send the club to the national finals to face off against other regional champions for both the national title and a US Open Cup spot.
However, it was later found that multiple players on the Beaman team maintained professional status while competing in the amateur cup. The team was disqualified following a failed appeal.
Tempo now US Open Cup-bound, again
Since 2023, the winners of the UPSL’s Spring Season have earned direct qualification into the US Open Cup tournament. This bypasses the need to take part in local qualifying and is a huge deal for plenty of teams.
The 2026 US Open Cup will mark Tempo’s second appearance in the tournament.
In the fall of 2022, Beaman United won three games in the Open Cup qualifying tournament to reach the 2023 tournament proper. During the three-game run, Poku, wearing the captain's armband, scored once against fellow UPSL side Kalonji Pro-Profile in the Third Qualifying Round. Seth Poku scored a brace in the 4-3 win in the Fourth Qualifying Round against D’Feeters Kicks SC (you have to love Open Cup team names) to secure the berth.
In the tournament, Beaman faced off against Open Cup regulars Des Moines Menace in the First Round. Before the Iowa side became known for bringing in all of Apple TV’s MLS panelists, the team was still a force, beating Beaman, 3-0, with Poku part of Beaman’s starting XI.
The team, now going by Tennessee Tempo, returned to qualifying the following fall but lost out on a 2024 US Open Cup appearance when it fell to rivals South Carolina United Heat in the final round of qualifying.
Despite not suiting up with the team this season, there’s nothing stopping Poku from playing with the squad in 2026. The US Open Cup has been home to former professionals playing for amateur teams before. Whether it's Sacha Kljestan on Des Moines, Gideon Baah on FC Motown, or others who help fill in for unavailable college players.
In that case, NYCFC fans might have another team to root for come the Opening Rounds of the 2026 Open Cup next March.
