Two brilliant goals from each half ensured that the Black Stars of Ghana begin their 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying campaign with an emphatic 2-0 win over the Bafana Bafana of South Africa at the Cape Coast Stadium on Thursday.
The Stars were hoping to bring back smiles on the faces of Ghanaians after their abysmal performance at the 2019 AFCON, which saw them exit in the competition at the 1/16th stage.
The cheering fans had to wait until the 35th minutes for midfielder, Thomas Partey to open the scoring with a superb long range shot to the left corner to give Ghana the lead.
The South Africans started the game on a brighter note and nearly got the opener in the 15th minutes of the game when number Bradly Grobler’s short range shot from a set piece went over the bar.
The visitors were forced to make an early substitution with Thapelo Morenax replacing injured Bongani Zungu in the 26th minutes.
They continued to play some fine football and enjoyed much of the possession in the first half but could not restore parity as the first half needed 1-0 in favour of the Black Stars.
The Stars started the second half strongly with striker Jordan Ayew showing some brilliant display, but could not double as he could not utilise the series of goal scoring opportunities that came his way.
Substitute Mohammed Kudus made no mistake and pulled a screamer to the top right corner of the post to make it 2-0 for Ghana after a defensive blunder from a South African central defender, Thamsanqa Mkhize with ten minutes to stoppage time.
Ghana then controlled the game from then until the Algerian referee, Mustapha Gaba blew his whistle to bring the game to an end.
Speaking after the match, Head Coach of the Black Stars, Kwesi Appiah expressed satisfaction with the performance of his players especially the young ones.
On the other hand, the South African coach, Molefi Ntseki was also happy with the performance of his players and expressed the confidence that they could make amends in their next match against Sudan.
Ghana would face Sao Tome and Princip on Monday November 18, 2019.
