Ghana national football team: Difference between revisions

Ghana
Nickname(s)	The Black Stars
Association	Ghana Football Association
Confederation	CAF (Africa)
Sub-confederation	WAFU (West Africa)
Head coach	Goran Stevanović
Captain	John Mensah
Most caps	Richard Kingson (90)
Top scorer	Abedi Pele (33)
Home stadium	Ohene Djan Sports Stadium; Baba Yara Stadium; Tamale Stadium; Sekondi Stadium
FIFA code	GHA
First colours	Second colours
FIFA ranking
Current	26
Highest	14 (February, April, May 2008)
Lowest	89 (June 2004)
First international
	Gold Coast 5–0 Nigeria ; (Accra, Gold Coast; 28 May 1950)
Biggest win
	Kenya 0–18 Ghana ; (Nairobi, Kenya; 12 December 1965)
Biggest defeat
	Bulgaria 6–0 Ghana ; (Leon, Mexico; 2 October 1968)
World Cup
Appearances	2 (first in 2006)
Best result	Quarter-finals, 2010
African Cup of Nations
Appearances	18 (first in 1963)
Best result	Winners, 1963, 1965, ; 1978, 1982
Medal record
Men’s Football

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Revision as of 20:19, 26 January 2012

The Ghana national football team, popularly known as the Black Stars, is the national association football team of Ghana and is controlled by the Ghana Football Association. Before gaining independence from Great Britain in 1957, the country played as the Gold Coast.

Although the team did not qualify for the senior FIFA World Cup until 2006, they had qualified for five straight Olympic Games Football Tournaments when the tournament was still a full senior national team competition. The team has won the Africa Cup of Nations four times^[5] (in 1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982), making Ghana the second most successful team in the contest's history, behind Egypt. The Olympic Team,^[4] the Black Meteors, in 1992 became the first African country to win a medal at football.

After going through 2005 unbeaten, Ghana won the FIFA most improved team of the year award and they reached the second round of the 2006 FIFA World Cup led by Serbian football coach, Ratomir Dujković.

At the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, they became the third African team in history to reach the World Cup quarter-finals.

History

The Ghana Amateur Football Association was founded in 1957, soon after the country's independence, and was affiliated to Confederation of African Football and FIFA the following year. Englishman George Ainsley was appointed coach of the national team.

In 1960 the Black Stars played Spanish giants Real Madrid, who were at the time Spanish, European and intercontinental champions, and drew 3–3.

Charles Kumi Gyamfi became coach in 1961, and Ghana won successive Africa Cup of Nations titles, in 1963 and 1965, and achieved their record win, 13–0 away to Kenya, shortly after the second of these. They also reached the final of the tournament in 1968 and 1970, losing 1–0 on each occasion, to DR Congo and Sudan respectively. Their domination of this tournament earned the country the nickname of "the Brazil of Africa" in the 1960s.^[6] The team had no success in FIFA World Cup qualification during this era, and failed to qualify for three successive African Cup of Nations in the 1970s, but qualified for the Olympic Games Football Tournaments, reaching the quarter finals in 1964 and withdrawing on political grounds in 1976 and but making little progress in continent-wide competitions until the appointment of Burkhard Ziese as coach in 1991. The 1992 African Cup of Nations, after three failures to reach the final tournament, saw Ghana finish second, beaten on penalties in the final by Côte d'Ivoire.

Disharmony among the squad, which eventually led to parliamentary and executive intervention to settle issues between two of the team, Abedi Pele and Anthony Yeboah, may have played some part in the failure of the team to build on the successes of the national underage teams. Ghana slipped to 89th place in the FIFA World Rankings, but a new generation of players who went to the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship final became the core of the team at the 2002 African Cup of Nations and the 2004 Olympic Games,^[4] and were undefeated for a year in 2005 and reached the finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the first time the team had reached the global stage of the tournament. Ghana started with a 2–0 defeat to eventual champions Italy, but wins over the Czech Republic (2–0) and USA (2–1) saw them through to the second round, where they were beaten 3–0 by Brazil.

The Black Stars went on to secure a 100 percent record in their qualification campaign, winning the group and becoming the first African team to qualify for 2010 FIFA World Cup. The World Cup Draw in Cape Town on the 4 December 2009 saw the Ghanaian team being placed alongside Germany, Serbia and Australia in Group D. They were able to reach the last 16 where they played the USA, defeating them 2–1 in extra time to become the third African nation to reach the World Cup quarterfinals. They then lost on penalties to Uruguay in the quarterfinals, having missed a penalty in extra time after a certain goal was saved off the line by Luis Suárez's deliberately parried handball who was then shown a red card for his actions.

World Cup record

Ghana were the only African side to advance to Round 2 of 2006 FIFA World Cup (Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Angola, and Tunisia were all eliminated in group play), and the sixth nation in a row from Africa to progress beyond the group stages of the World Cup. Ghana was the youngest team in the FIFA World Cup 2006 with an average age of 23 yrs and 352 days.

Because of Ghana's performances in the tournament, there has been praise for their continuous efforts to push forward and their fearless attitude. Greek Coach Otto Rehhagel told FIFA.com, "the teams you used to regard as a little behind tactically, the Africans for example, have caught up. They're physically even better off than we are, as they have tremendous natural athleticism, and they've come on enormously in the areas which were non-existent before, discipline and tactics for example. Every team which faced Ghana or Cote d'Ivoire knew they'd been in a game."^[7] Of their 2006 performance, FIFA.com said, "Ghana are surely a side in ascendancy."^[8]

Of the 32 countries that participated in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Ghana was ranked 13th by FIFA.[1]

Ghana vs. Serbia in the 2010 FIFA World Cup group D match at Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria on 13 June 2010.

Ghana vs. Uruguay in the 2010 FIFA World Cup quarter-final match at Soccer City, Johannesburg on 2 July 2010.

FIFA World Cup record
Year	Round	Position	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA
1962	Did not qualify
1966	Withdrew
1970 to 1978	Did not qualify
1982	Withdrew
1986 to 2002	Did not qualify
2006	Round of 16	13th	4	2	0	2	4	6
2010	Quarter-Final	7th	5	2	2	1	5	4
Total	2/13		9	4	2	3	9	10

African Cup of Nations record

After the 1963 and 1965 triumphs, Ghana hosted and won the 13th edition of the African Cup of Nations trophy for keeps in 1978, and four years later, won it again in Tripoli, Libya. The team have won the African Cup of Nations four times (in 1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982), making Ghana the second most successful team in the contest's history, together with Cameroon; Egypt has won the past three tournaments (2006, 2008, 2010) to give it a record seven titles.

The Ghana national team at the 2008 African Cup of Nations before the quarter-final match against Nigeria.

African Cup of Nations
Titles: 4 Appearances: 18
Year	Position	Year	Position	Year	Position
1957	Did not enter	1978	Champions	1998	Round 1
1959	Did not enter	1980	Round 1	2000	Quarter-finals
1962	Did not qualify	1982	Champions	2002	Quarter-finals
1963	Champions	1984	Round 1	2004	Did not qualify
1965	Champions	1986	Did not qualify	2006	Round 1
1968	Second Place	1988	Did not qualify	2008	Third Place
1970	Second Place	1990	Did not qualify	2010	Second Place
1972	Did not qualify	1992	Second Place*	2012	Qualified
1974	Did not qualify	1994	Quarter-finals	2013	TBD
1976	Did not qualify	1996	Fourth Place	2015	TBD

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.

**Gold background colour indicates that the tournament was won.

***Red border color indicates tournament was held on home soil.

For 2010, see 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (CAF)

Olympic record

Ghana won the Olympic Bronze Medal in 1992

1964: 1/4 finals
1968: Group Stage
1972: Group Stage
1976: Group Stage
1992: Bronze medal
1996: 1/4 finals
2004: Group Stage

Note: Football at the Summer Olympics has been an under-23 tournament since 1992.

Match results

This is the senior Ghanaian national team forthcoming International Friendly matches

Key

Win Draw Loss

12 January 2012 International Friendly	Ghana	vs.	Kaizer Chiefs	Rustenburg, South Africa
15:00 UTC+2				Stadium: Royal Bafokeng Stadium

15 January 2012 International Friendly	Ghana	1 – 1	South Africa	Rustenburg, South Africa
15:00 UTC+2	Muntari 11'	Report	T. Sangweni 06'	Stadium: Royal Bafokeng Stadium

18 January 2012 International Friendly	Ghana	2 – 0	Platinum Stars	Rustenburg, South Africa
15:00 UTC+2	Gyan 27' A. Ayew 32'	Report		Stadium: Royal Bafokeng Stadium

For 2011 match results, see Ghana national football team 2011

2012 African Cup of Nations

Following the 2010 World Cup tournament, the Ghanaians started with the score of 16 points from 6 matches in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualification (Group I) campaign.^[9]

Ghana kept a clean sheet throughout their qualification campaign, drawing only with Sudan. The four-time African champions began the journey with a 3-0 win over Swaziland, drew with the Nile Crocodiles but won convincingly against Congo in their third game. They won all their return leg matches, capping off their schedule with a 2-0 victory over Sudan in Khartoum.^[9]

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Ghana	6	5	1	0	13	1	+12	16
Sudan	6	4	1	1	8	3	+5	13
Congo	6	2	0	4	5	10	−5	6
Eswatini	6	0	0	6	2	14	−12	0


Congo	–	0–3	0–1	3–1
Ghana	3–1	–	0–0	2–0
Sudan	2–0	0–2	–	3–0
Eswatini	0–1	0–3	1–2	–

The draw for the final tournament took place on 29 October 2011 at the Sipopo Conference Palace in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire along with hosts Gabon and Equatorial Guinea were the top seeded teams for the draw of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.^[10]

Ghana was placed in group D along with Botswana, West African rivals Mali and Guinea, thus making it an open and fairly difficult group.^[11]

Group D

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Ghana	3	2	1	0	4	1	+3	7	Advance to knockout stage
2	Mali	3	2	0	1	3	3	0	6	Advance to knockout stage
3	Guinea	3	1	1	1	7	3	+4	4
4	Botswana	3	0	0	3	2	9	−7	0

Updated to match(es) played on unknown. Source: ^{[citation needed]}

24 January 2012