Ghana bunkered down against England on Tuesday, and it worked to perfection.
The Black Stars tied England 0-0 as both teams now have four points through two Group L games. After beating Panama to open the World Cup, Ghana has a high probability of advancing to the knockout rounds of the World Cup for the first time since advancing to the quarterfinals in 2010 before being eliminated in controversial fashion by Uruguay and Luis Suarez’s handball.
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England peppered the Ghana goal in the final minutes, but was unable to find the game-winning goal. Its best sequence came after Benjamin Asare saved a shot by Bukayo Saka before Nico O’Reilly’s header hit the crossbar and Harry Kane sent the rebound over the goal.
In added time, England had a fantastic chance off a corner, but a certain goal was headed off the line.
Ghana’s strategy was evident from the start. It was content to maintain its defensive shape in front of goal and force England to methodically break it down. That resulted in the first game all tournament where neither team had a shot on goal in the first half.
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Things were livelier in the second half, and Ghana ended up having a couple chances on the counter. The best opportunity to steal all three points and potentially the group win came with less than 15 minutes to go, but Antoine Semenyo accidentally blocked Prince Adu’s shot after Adu had gone to ground.
The sequence ended up being all for naught as Semenyo was flagged for offside.
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