Ouch. That was painful.
Ghana went out in the way you really don’t want to see anyone go out. After 90 minutes of regulation and another 30 minutes of additional time Ghana and Uruguay were drawn at 1-1, meaning the dreded penalty shootout was going to settle the game. But it was worse than that. In the waning seconds of injury time in the last period of additional time (got that straight?) Ghana was pummeling Uruguay’s goal and got a shot that was going across the goal mouth when one of the dastards from Uruguay intentionally handed the ball out of the way. He cheated. And this was not a run-of-the-mill plausible denial handball either. This was clear, it was blatant, and it prevented without a doubt what would have been the best ending to a World Cup game this year (due respect, Landon Donovan).
Uruguay conceded a penalty kick. In effect, Uruguay traded a surefire goal that wopuld have lost them the game for a penalty kick, which has a success rate of something north of 50% but plenty south of 100%. Asamoah Gyan’s penalty effort slammed off the top crossbar. Uruguay executed the penlaty kicks to decide the match much better than did Ghana. They move on to the semifinals. Uruguay’s perfidy was rewarded. A continent wept.
And last night’s support for Ghana should leave no doubt that in the minds of Africans, this is the continent’s cup, not just South Africa’s. No cheering in the pressbox? SABC, the print media, every outlet I could see of the fourth estate was wholly in the bag for Ghana.
SABC1’s studio show consisted of four talking heads, including Liberian legend George Weah and Nigeriua’s former star Jay Jay Okocha and they made no effort to hide their full support for Ghana. In the studio with them was a crowd of fans, or more accurately, a crowd of Ghana fans, who have been from what I have seen arguably the most colorful fan bases at this World Cup.
The Sowetan ran a wonderful editorial cartoon with two panels. One showed a map of Africa, labeled “Before . . .”with Ghana shaded in with the design of the country’s flag. The second panel, “Today . . .” showed all of Africa shaded in with those colors.
In another paper Gauteng Province paid to place an advertisement supporting the Black Stars. Nelson Mandela gave Ghana an inspirational speech giving them the support of all Africans. South African celebrities of all stripes gave testimonials in support of the Ghanaians. And of course the tens of thousands of fans at Soccer City Stadium were wildly, rabidly on the side of Africa’s last hope.
Fair or unfair, sad or not, Ghana’s World Cup is done, and thus the World Cup for all African teams is finished. And with Brazil’s unexpected defeat (dammit — how smart would I look if I had stayed strong and maintained my initial contrarian belief in the Dutch?!) most African fans are likely to be free agents.
I may as well embarass myself with predictions for today’s matches, the first of which I will miss the bulk of as I will be flying to Durban just after kickoff.
Argentina 3-2 Germany. This one seems like a coin toss. These are both very good teams, and this matchup is worthy of a final. I expect Germany’s back line to fail them at some point, and Argentina is an especially bad team fopr the back line to falter against. Lionel Messi, who has shined despite not yet punching his scorecard in this Cup will end that drought today.
Spain 2-0 Paraguay. The Paraguayans play great defense and Spain has yet truly to impress with its offensive firepower. Nonetheless, Paraguay has shown almost no ability to put the ball in the net or even seriously to make a goalie sweat. Spain is simply better, though that designation has not necessarily been of much use in this tournament. Nonetheless, talent will out.
Or maybe all of this is nonsense. My record with predictions has not exactly been sterling, and leading with my heart rather than my head has not exactly helped.
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