Portugal VS Ghana – WC Match #15

A great group H second match happened between Portugal and Ghana. Both teams did their best but in the end, Portugal won the game and take the top-of-table position after the last match between Uruguay and South Korea was drawn. It was a good game of football, both set of fans backed their teams throughout the 90 minutes.

Match of the tournament so far

Portugal controlled the game in the first half and tried to score. Ronaldo did score but the goal was disallowed. Then in the second half, Ronaldo won and scored the penalty and gave Portugal the lead. Then after the equalizer of Ghana. Portugal only took 2 minutes to get the lead back, the goal scorer Ayew was congratulating the Ghana bench and when he saw back Felix already gave the lead back to Portugal. Bruno Fernandez assisted the goal and Felix finished it with a touch of class. Then the Substitute Rafael Leao also scored and doubled the lead and it looked like Portugal have done the job.

However, Ghana scored in the 89th minute to keep the hopes alive. Then Portugal and ghana both played beautiful football and it ended the same. Also, it was a sight to see when William tried to steal the ball from Costa and Ronaldo and the gang on the bench thought that they are doomed. Still, Portugal was a little bit weak in the defense. They are at the top of the table now. 

Ghana’s Spirit

Ghana started the game by defending the ball and giving possession to Ronaldo and the team comfortably. They were looking good with their defensive play in the first half. In the 31st minute, Ronaldo found the net after pushing Djiku and beating Ati-Zigi. It was a fantastic strike but the referee thought the push was enough to call it a foul and disallowed the beautiful goal. Ajax star boy Mohammed Kudus was playing really well. He was creating problems for Portugal, and they were not able to mark him. It was a surprise to see him getting substituted and even he gave a look of shock. Maybe with him on the pitch they could have drawn the game.

Ghana did well to come back and equalize after Ronaldo’s penalty goal. Ghana equalizes after just 8 minutes, Kudus made a great run inside the box and assisted Ayew so well that he just have to tap the ball in. This gave them good confidence but it didn’t last long as after the substitution break Portugal scored again.  And after two minutes they doubled their lead. Osman Bukhari get another one back for Ghana and got Ghana back in the game.

Ghana then chased the game till the last minute and they got another opportunity when Inaki Williams took the advantage of Costa dropping the ball for a goal kick but didn’t know that he is behind him. He could have scored the goal and tied the match but he slipped and the golden chance was taken from him as Dias and Danilo recovered the ball. It was really smart of Willliam that he tried what could have been the most entertaining goal in World Cup.

Man of the match

The man of the match was won by Cristiano Ronaldo, who breaks yet another record as he is the first player to score in 5 different editions of the world cup. However, a great performance was put in by Mohammed Kudus. Despite being on the losing side he played better than anyone on the pitch. He is the reason Ghana scored the first goal and they could have tied the match with him on the pitch

Portugal now leads the table and has a good chance of going into the round of 16 let’s see what happens next in Group H. Their next match will be against Uruguay.