Little Ghana kicks mighty USA out of South Africa.
It was one of the greatest and historic moments of football yesterday at the FIFA World Cup 2010, as the small African nation and the only ones from Africa who managed to qualify for the last 16 found them-selves progressing further in this year’s World Cup as they over powered the United States of America and placed themselves to play the quarter finals of the tournament.
The men from Ghana thus gave news papers around the globe an unthinkable headline which went a little something like this “Ghana kicks USA out of South Africa”, a statement which when looked at from different angles and dimensions just looks unreal.
Ghana, which has a GDP per capita of $671, is officially the poorest country competing in the tournament however they have managed to beat the richest country in the tournament, USA stand with a per capita GDP of $46,381.
However it’s not only the spending power or simple economics that should have the USA team bamboozled, it’s also the tremendous difference in the sporting infrastructure of both the countries and this fact thus makes Ghana's victory even more brilliant.
Yesterday night was a night that 23 million Ghanaians spent the night away celebrating the greatest sporting moment in the history of their country as around 300 million American’s spent the night coming to terms with what had just happened to their country and thus my friends, such is the power of sports.
With the backing of almost every person in Africa, the fiery African men from Ghana beat the USA 2-1 in the extra 30 minutes that were allotted to the game as both teams found themselves at a draw when the initial 90 minutes of the game expired.
The victory also meant that Ghana are now only the third African side to have qualified for the quarterfinals of a World Cup tournament, with Cameroon being the first two decades ago in 1990 and Senegal almost a decade ago in 2002.
Thus in the words of Nelson Mandela "sport can create hope where once there was only despair” fits in a 100 percent today as here in South Africa a nation which once itself was in ruins, finds itself today hosting the biggest football event in the world with Ghana having used the platform to put their names in the history books.
In the mean time however, Uruguay who beat their opponent South Korea 2-1 became the first team to make it to the quarter finals of the World Cup 2010 and now will be taking on Ghana next in their bid to reach the semi finals of the tournament.
Before that, there are still a couple of quarter-finals to be played. Today, Germany will take on England and Argentina will later go up against the Mexicans.
The England coach claims that their win over Slovenia got the players back into rhythm and thus if that is believed to be true then today’s match should be a walk in the park for the English side, as the star studded team is definitely the likely favourites for today’s clash.
However having said that and looking at the results of yesterdays USA- Ghana match, the match will not be that simple as in the last two international encounter between these two teams, the matches went into penalty shoot-outs.
In the second match of the day, the Mexicans will look to avenge their 2006 World Cup quarter finals defeat when they take on Argentina.
Argentina at the same round of the FIFA World Cup 2006 managed a 1-0 win, as their star scorer Maxi Rodriguez managed a superb goal in the extra time and thus giving his team the boost to go on and win the Cup.
Now since arriving in South Africa, the Argentineans have looked impressive and have won all three of their Group B games.
They also stand as the favourites to win this year’s title and thus that makes today’s match even more exciting as the case so far has been that it has been that the most favoured teams in South Africa are today finding themselves sitting back at home because here in Africa, the matches have proved that history means nothing.
Perform on the day and take home the victory, don’t- and here’s your return ticket, Thank you very much, we hope that the South African hospitality was up to the mark and to all the remaining teams in the words of Shakira, “Zamina mina…Waka waka” which mean “Come on Come on Do it do it”!
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