By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
… Held To Goalless Draw
FORMER WORLD senior men’s football champions, the Three Lions of England failed to roar like the king of the jungle at the Boston Stadium in Foxborough on Tuesday night Nigerian time as the resilient Black Stars of Ghana held England regarded as the world home of football to a barren draw.
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Star studded world ranked 4th England did all the tricks in football books playing theoretical football, but Ghana ranked 73rd had no time for fanciful football which was well executed to give the four times African champions a delightful goalless game.
England fielded three Nigerians in Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze all playing for Arsenal FC to get the robust physical type of African football having made 19-2 shots at goal with 3 -1 shots on target in the game.
England tried their dominating kind of football with 78-22% ball possession; stringing a fanciful 619-168 passes and getting 9-2 corner kicks advantage but that did not bother Ghanaians frustrating strategy with neat foul plays applied that resulted in 24 foul calls for Ghana and 14 for England.
There were one yellow cards for caution apiece even with the rough and frustrating plays. Declan Rice of England got the first yellow in 41st minute of play and Inaki Williams of Ghana got the 2nd yellow from Ref Said Martin’s in the 60th minute.
The frustration pressure was so unbearable for England which made Jude Bellingham talk rough with Ghanaian Manager, Carlos Queiroz and his staff after the whistle was blown for end of first half in which 6 minutes were added as injury time.
One had expected the Ref to award cards on resumption of play but England removed Jude to avoid cards later.
In the Group L first round matches, England defeated Croatia 4-2 while Ghana piped Panama 1-0. Panama and Croatia are meeting at midnight today. Last group matches will be played simultaneously on 27th June when Panama faces England and Ghana tackles Croatia.
As at the time of filing this report, England with two matches played tops group L with 4 points scoring 4 goals and conceding 2; Ghana is 2nd with 4 points scoring a lone goal but keeping a clean slate (meaning not conceding a single goal); Panama is 3rd with 1 point no goal scored and conceding one goal while Croatia is 4th with 1 point scoring 2 goals and conceding 4.
The Three Lions of England in their 17 appearances at the mundial only won the world cup in 1966 in the era of legendary Bobby Moore. England placed 4th two times in 1990 and 2018.
Ghana is in her 5th appearances at the Mundial and was wonderful at the championship in South Africa 2010 when they were stopped via penalty in the quarterfinals.
Ghana had in 2010 beaten the Yankees of USA in the Round of 16 before losing in the quarterfinals before a crowd of 84,017 fans at Jo’Bourg.
Sure Muntari had scored the 1st goal at 45+2 minutes, and Diego Forlan equalised in the 55th minute.
That was the match in which ‘biting bobo’ of Uruguay brought the hand of God to stop a goal bound shot, got an instant direct red card but Ghana’s Gyan lost the resultant penalty kick for the match to end 1-1 after extra time. Uruguay won 4-2 on penalties to move to the semifinal.
There was a STOP PRESS ALERT that Portugal’s Christiano Ronaldo has become the first world footballer to score in six world cup tournaments. He currently has five goals to his credit in this tournament same as Lionel Messi of Argentina.
#2026WorldCup #EUFA #CAF
#TFA #GFA #NFF
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