Uruguay 1 Ghana 1 (aet, 4-2 pen)
2010 World Cup Quarter Finals
Friday 2 July 2010 | Soccer City | Johannesburg, South Africa
Nothing is easy on the continent of Africa. This match reinforced that fact to the entire world of sport.
Unless you were pulling for Uruguay, today's match was like watching some sordid dream where somebody, perhaps even yourself, has been stripped of their clothes and is forced to climb up a sheer rock face in order to be spared some wretched death. Halfway up, you are bombarded by stones thrown by the gathering crowd below. You shrug it off while noticing that your hands and feet are bleeding profusely. But you muster the strength to carry on. Then, with your right hand, you feel the top ledge. You somehow lift your right leg up over your shoulder and plant the inside of your shoe on the ledge, but your left leg gives way and you are now facing straight down with only your left palm saving you from falling to the snickering crowd. You then feel someone above grab your right arm and leg and hoist you to safety - you think that since you made it this far, your captors have let you live.
Then you wake up in a cold sweat. Your name is Asamoah Gyan, and your dream was a grotesque replay of what you just went through: a soccer match, featuring sometimes breathtaking, wide open play for 120 minutes, that was decided in large part by your missed penalty kick in the last seconds of extra time―given because of a red card for a hand ball by a Uruguayan player saving what would have been a clear goal for your country's team, Ghana―and Uruguay winning the after-time penalty shootout, 4-to-2.
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Forget about the 90+ minutes of regular time. Forget about 29 of the 30 minutes of extra time. The match came down to a Ghana free kick from John Pantsil on the right wing just before extra time was to expire (120:15 on the clock). An explosion of chances just before the final dramatic series of events left Ghana wanting. The free kick was flicked with the back of Kevin Prince Boateng's head to a yard in front of the goal mouth where Fernando Muslera, the Uruguyan keeper, went for the ball with his right hand, but he could only barely tap it downward to his left, where Stephen Appiah was waiting a yard in front of goal to wail with his left foot. Wail he did, but Luis Suarez who had been stationed on the goal line to add to the keeper's defense saved the shot with his left leg on the goal line - the keeper had migrated to the left part of the goal. The save caromed to a couple of yards in front of the left side of goal where Dominic Adiya headed the ball directly to the middle of goal. Suarez saved again for Uruguay, but this time with his right hand. Portuguese referee Olegario Benquerenca whistled the foul and showed Suarez the straight red card.
Suarez headed off the pitch in tears while Asamoah Gyan for Ghana placed the ball on the penalty spot, ready to give the Black Stars a historic victory. But the players on the Uruguayan bench signaled for Suarez to come back to the bench because Gyan struck the cross bar with his penalty kick, sending the ball high up into the air and with it, perhaps the hopes of a continent. Ghana now had to somehow summon strength for the shootout.
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Uruguay’s super striker Diego Forlan converted smoothly, followed by Gyan, who had just missed the penalty kick that would have sent his African side to the semi-finals. Gyan seemed unaffected by his monumental miss as he perfected his attempt into the upper right corner. Then, Mauricio Victorino and Appiah converted for Uruguay and Ghana, respectively, and it stood 2-2.
Andres Scotti went low in the middle to convert for Uruguay, but John Mensah took only one step toward the ball and sending it slowly to the right where Muslera made a fairly easy save. Uruguay up 3-2.
La Celeste (the Sky Blues as the Uruguayans are known) were in the driver’s seat as Maximiliano Pereira approached his attempt, but he flew his shot high over the bar giving the Ghanaians a chance to equalize. But Dominic Adiyah sent a side-footed shot slowly to the right where Muslera made another relatively easy save.
Richard Kingson now had to save Uruguay’s next attempt to keep his team, his country, and his continent in the match. Sebastian Abreu delivered an audaciously slow chip shot over the sprawled body of Kingson to give Uruguay a 4-2 win on penalties and give his continent a chance to see an all-South American final.
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Uruguay now move on to face the Netherlands in the semi-final match next Tuesday. Ghana now must somehow pick themselves off the floor after such a devastating defeat, especially after carrying the burden of Africa's expectations.
And then there are the departing Ghanaians. It is a shame that Asamoah Gyan will likely be remembered for his cruel miss rather than all of the splendid play he gave the world during this World Cup, as postulated by Chris McQuade with video.
As Robinson Jeffers, the American poet once wrote, "Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us." The ending of this match will seem unnatural to me for a very long time.
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