“The beautiful game" can be very cruel sometimes and we have just experienced the same in the Group D opener between Serbia and Ghana. Two silly mistakes have dented hopes of a nation which was aspiring to progress well in the tournament. There was genuinely no need of Aleksander holding the Ghanaian striker in a challenge for header, knowing he was already in the referee’s book for an earlier yellow card offence. His fellow central defender Nemanja Vidic was standing behind him to see off any loose ball with no other Ghanaian player in sight. Instead the player made this foolish decision and left the referee with no choice but to send him off.
The match unexpectedly came to life after having seen the unwanted red color. Even going one man down Serbia kept on charging on the Ghanaian goal, as they very rightly knew that getting all three points in this match was extremely crucial for progressing through this group. These intentions suffered an unbend-able dent only six minutes from full time when Zdravko Kuzmanovic, who had just been brought on after the red card to help the Serbian team in defense, went through a lapse in concentration and handled the ball when he felt it to be going away from his intended header. It was utterly unnecessary as most of his teammates were standing in the penalty box, having crowded the goal mouth and there was no chance of Ghanaians’ posing any real threat on goal. Asamoah Gyan took a great resulting penalty and could have doubled the lead in the injury time when he hit the post, capping a very good performance overall.
Just before the Lukovic‘s sending off, both teams seemed to have run out of ideas. The match went off to a great start with both sides getting early chances. As the match progressed the Serbians started to settle in well, with a greater share of ball possession. The Ghanaians’ seemed to be missing their start central midfielder Michael Essien, who is no more in their squad due to injury, at this stage as they had just started to find it difficult to get a foot hold in the match. Both goal keepers though had little to do as they only saw a few shots passing by their goals posts. The under criticism match ball ‘Jabulani’ nearly produced another fumble from the Ghana goal keeper Richard Kingson towards the end of the first half but he managed to stop the ball going into his net on second attempt.
Ghana came out of the half break with more confidence and belief. African teams are under a spirit of jubilance playing in this World Cup in front of their enthusiastic supporters and the Ghana team responded well to the continuous cheering from the local fans. The Black Stars made some good individual performances in the match. Goal keeper Richard Kingson made some good looking saves; John Mensah and Isaac Vorsah were solid at the back whereas John Pantsil kept running up and down the right flank to help in both attacking and defensive sides of the game. Kevin-Prince Boateng, whose tackle in the FA Cup final got the German regular captain Michael Ballack injured and out of the World Cup, also made a few runs bursting forward from the midfield. On the other side, Marko Pantelic worked hard for this team but lacked the required service from the Serbian midfield. His strike partner Nikola Zigic could not make good use of a number of opportunities and was poor overall.
Serbians were favourites going into the match and have blown their chance of getting their noses ahead. Their next match is against the group favourites Germany which they will have to win now to retain any chance of staying in the tournament, whereas Ghana will face Australia next and can confirm their berth in the Round of 16 with a win over Socceroos.
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