Black Stars on the cusp of history
No African team has
gone beyond the quarter finals of the World Cup. The two teams to have
reached that stage-Cameroon (1990) and Senegal (2002) fell to their
opponents. Today, the Black of Stars will be gunning to change all
that. Against Uruguay at the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg,
they’ll be aiming to enter history books as the first African country
to get to the semi finals of the World Cup.
Journey so far
To get to this
stage of the competition, the Black Stars saw off the challenge in the
Group D where it was placed defeating Serbia by a lone goal in her
opening match, then played out a 1-1 draw with Australia and although
they lost 0-1 to Germany, the team went into the next round. In the
Round of 16, Ghana became the first team to take a match into extra
time at the 2010 FIFA World Cup when ninety minutes failed to separate
the African team and the United States team. The match had started well
for Ghana with Kevin Prince Boateng putting them in front after just
five minutes. Landon Donovan however made things even when he converted
a penalty kick award after a careless tackle on a goal bound American
by Ghanaian defender, Jonathan Mensah. Extra time had hardly begun
before Asamoah Gyan held off two defenders to fire the ball into the
net for the winner and a date with Uruguay today.
Missing men
Ghana is without
suspended players: Jonathan Mensah and Andre Ayew; but striker, Asamoah
Gyan, is expected to recover from an ankle injury he picked up in the
second-round victory over the United States.
The biggest problem for the last African team left in the
competition is the enormous weight of expectations. But Ghana’s Serbian
coach, Milovan Rajevac, says the prospect of becoming the first team
from the continent to reach the last four will motivate his squad. “We
are not thinking about the pressure,” he told fifa.com. “We played very
well at the African (Cup of) Nations so we have already proved that we
are a team that knows how to compete. We will try to relax. You know it
is good for us to be here. We are very happy with the whole situation.”
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