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Ghana cruises to finals
of Four Nation tourney
Accra, Nov 18, Ghanadot/GNA – Ghana’s Black Stars cruised to
the finals of the Zenith Four Nations Tourney courtesy a 2-0
thumping of the Hawks of Togo in their game played at the
upgraded Ohene Djan Stadium, Accra on Sunday.
The Stars who were playing for first time in front of the
home fans for over nearly two years now, started the slowly
but managed to grab all three points with goals from Baffour
Gyan and Laryea Kingston.
In front of the crowd made up of nearly the 40, 000 capacity
arena, the Stars made early incursions at goal with Kingston
bringing the fans to their feet when he tore away from the
Togolese defence to box his way around De Souga Komi and
moved in a manner that drew Mathew Amoah and Junior Agogo
into the frail.
With the effort wasted, Togo took charge and attacked the
Ghanaian defence but a move initiated by Arsenal’s Emmanuel
Adebayor was well handled by goalkeeper Richard Kingston, a
little after 10 minutes into the duel.
With scanty chances and action centered at the midfield,
Agogo warmed himself into the heart of the fans when he
profited from a Togolese defensive mix up to race beyond his
markers but his shot missed target narrowly just at the half
hour mark.
With the clock ticking to recess, Ghana got the closest to
scoring in a goal mouth scramble that ensured the Togolese
did a great deal of work to keep the scores unchanged.
Ghana resumed the second half better with creative Sulley
Muntari sending clear signals of their intention with a
narrow miss.
Eight minutes on, Baffour Gyan who replaced Amoah from the
recess sent the crowd chanting when he finished off a
beautiful move from Agogo’s set up.
Muntari picked up Agogo from the left flank, with the latter
taking a quick turn to set clear Gyan who had just returned
to the team since last year.
Gyan took his chances with the ball deflecting off the lower
side of the post before rolling into the net for the first
goal.
Togo was to launch a retaliation led by the Arsenal’s ace-
Adebayor who curled a perfect dead ball just inches away
from Ghana’s penalty box in a manner that stretched
goalkeeper Kingson to his elastic limit on the 63rd minute.
The tide from then turned in favour of Ghana and after Togo
had managed to survive an invasion that should have rewarded
skipper Stephen Appiah, Kingston grabbed the second goal.
The skilful player delivered a masterpiece of a free-kick
that left Togolese goalkeeper Mensah Ceduic exposed after an
advancing Munatri was fouled with only fifteen minutes to
go.
Ghana’s trainer, Claude Le Roy and his Togolese counterpart,
Steven Keshi effected several changes but that could not
alter the result.
GNA
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