2022 World Cup: Ghana tops South Africa with nothing and climbs to third round

Ghana captain André Ayew here at CAN 2017. AP - Sunday Alamba

Text by: Nicolas Bamba Follow

3 min

A penalty signed André Ayew allowed Ghana to win against South Africa on Sunday, December 14, on the final day of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers in group G (second round).

The Black Stars take first place ahead of Bafana Bafana thanks to a better attack.

They will play the dams.

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A place in the play-offs of

sometimes takes little.

To very little even.

It is not South Africa that will say the opposite.

The players under Hugo Broos knew they were risking big in Cape Coast against Ghana on Sunday.

The catastrophic and cruel scenario came true in the evening: that of a 1-0 defeat.

André Ayew, a happy 100th

Before the kick-off, the calculations were quite simple: the leaders Bafana Bafana should not lose.

They had 13 points on the clock, while the Ghanaians had 10 points.

The narrow gap in goal differences (+5 for South Africa, +3 for Ghana) left no margin of safety.

A Ghanaian victory, whatever the score, would be catastrophic for the visitors.

In a long locked meeting, Milovan Rajevac, the Ghana coach, was able to count on 

.

The 31-year-old attacking midfielder, an Al-Sadd player in Qatar, took responsibility when Senegalese referee Mr. Maguette N'Diaye whistled a penalty after seeing a charge from Rushine De Reuck behind Joel's back Fameyeh.

André Ayew was responsible for taking the penalty and turning it into a goal (33rd).

An ideal way to celebrate his 100th international cap (only Asamoah Gyan had reached this bar before him; he has 109 caps in total).

South Africa eliminated for a goal

Harmless for the first 60 minutes, the South Africans tried to pick up more pace as time went on.

But aside from a few attempts by Percy Tau, they were too timid to turn the tide.

On arrival, this defeat is very annoying from an arithmetic point of view, because it is indeed Ghana which wins first place and qualification for the third and final round of the qualifiers.

Ghana have 13 points and have a +4 goal difference, like South Africa.

Perfect equality?

Almost.

The Black Stars emerge victorious because they scored 7 goals during the six days of this second round, while the Bafana Bafana only scored 6. For a small goal, South Africa remains docked.

And Ghana joins Morocco, Senegal, Mali, Egypt and the DRC among the dams that will face each other in March.

GROUP G SUMMIT SEALED 🔝

4 wins ✅

1 defeat ❌

1 draw 🤝

Ghana have made it to the final round of the 2022 #WCQ!

🏆

The Black Stars join the race to secure a spot to Qatar in 2022!

🇬🇭 # WorldCup |

@ghanafaofficial pic.twitter.com/wyvf5xqKgJ

- CAF (@CAF_Online) November 14, 2021

Senegal and Mali end in style

In the other match of the evening, Senegal, already qualified and well ahead of Group H, confirmed their superiority by winning 2-0 in Thiès against Congo-Brazzaville.

Ismaïla Sarr scored twice (14th, 24th).

The Teranga Lions complete this second round with 16 points (5 wins, 1 draw) ahead of Togo (5 points), Namibia (5 points) and Congo-Brazzaville (3 points).

Earlier Sunday, Mali, also qualified, also ensured with a 1-0 success against Uganda thanks to the striker Kalifa Coulibaly.

The Eagles also have 16 points in their group and haven't conceded a single goal in six games against Uganda (9 points), Kenya (3 points) and Rwanda (1 point).

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