Ghana Black Stars News Round-Up
Well... a lot has happened since our exhilarating 2-2 draw with ze Germans! After the final whistle blew in our game we all knew that the Portuguese would have to do us a favour for us to stay in the tournament. Their game kicked off last night at 11pm local time so I didn't watch it due to work commitments the following day. I went to bed knowing that Portugal were already 1-up after 5 minutes. Naturally I was hopeful that they were well on their way to giving the USA a sound beating and by doing so keeping our hopes alive. I woke up this morning to find out that Portugal hadn't done the business and in fact needed a last last gasp goal to equalise against the yanks. And even more surprisingly that wasn't the biggest news story affecting our national team today... (more on that later).But we shall start with the USA v Portugal match. Just like our game against Germany the day before it ended in a 2-2 stalemate with the USA leading 2-1 as late as the 93rd minute!! (How agonisingly close it must have been for the Ghana and Porgutal fans that watched it live). Indeed had Cristiano Ronaldo not shaken off his niggling injury woes (and all the "work" Kwaku Bonsam is doing on him) to produce a quality cross for Silvestre Varela's equaliser in the 4th minute of stoppage time, we would have been out of the tournament.
I guess I speak for most Ghana fans and sympathisers alike when I say PHEW! As my wife would say we dodged a bullet with that one. But unfortunately we aren't out of the woods yet either. As we know anything less than victory for us means we are out. Aside from that we still need a number of different things to go our way to qualify. For the sake of simplicity I will try and break them down. In addition to a Ghana win, we also need:
a) Germany to beat the USA in their final game (anything less, we're out)
b) Ghana to have a better goal difference than the USA.
Just to make things clear to those of you that are anal, there is a scenario where Germany lose and we go through but I think that it's highly improbable. This would mean that Germany need to lose heavily to the USA (unlikely) and / or Ghana would probably need to win by a large margin against Portugal (not impossible but also unlikely) to overcome Germany's superior goal difference. Ghana would need a 5 goal swing in this scenario so I think USA losing is much better for us.
Now as things stand, Germany top the group with 4 points (goal diff of +4). The USA are second currently also with 4 (and goal diff +1). Ghana and Portugal sit in 3rd and 4th respectively with a point each (Ghana has a better goal diff of -1 compared to -4 for Portugal). So the margin of victory in both games will be crucial for Ghana. If Germany win by a single goal then Ghana has to win by 2 goals at least. If Germany hammer the USA like they did Portugal in their first game, or win by 2 goals or more then any victory for Ghana will do.
Forgive my pessimism but I prefer the second scenario for us to qualify. Not because I don't think we can beat the Portuguese by 2 clear goals because I do... But rather because I believe that having such a specific target could create instability in the mentality of the team. I think its easier simply to go for a win and not have to worry about the margin of victory. We are relying on Germany getting a result anyway, if USA avoids defeat we are OUT so its better to focus on getting "the W" rather than worrying about goal difference in my opinion.
So, in conclusion A LOT of things have to go our way for us to qualify, but I think anything is possible. I am sure there will be a lot of prayers and good wishes for the team before the game on Thursday. Sulley Muntari is already creating good karma for himself and the team with his charitable acts in Brazil, which is lovely to see. I will be writing a preview for the game similar to the one I did for the Germany game on Wednesday so please be on the lookout for that.
In other Black Stars related news, there seems to be allegations of corruption by GFA officials selling the rights for friendly international games to match fixers. It was the front page story for some major UK news outlets. I don't want to add to much fuel to the fire here so I won't go into too much detail, but the GFA themselves have gone on record to say they reported this to the police. For more updates on this you can follow my timeline on twitter as I will post any major updates on this story there.
That's all from me. Until next time...
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