Ayew goal sends Ghana through

Monday, 06 February 2012

An extra time goal by Andre Ayew in the 101st minute was enough to take Ghana into the semifinals with a 2-1 victory over Tunisia in Franceville.

Saber Khelifa cancelled out John Mensah’s opener, but Ayew was the hero of the night with the winner and a well-rounded performance.

Ghana opened the scoring after ten minutes through captain Mensah who was returning after his red card in the opening match and a thigh injury, which has kept him out as well.

An in-swinging corner from Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu towards the near post was flicked on by Kwadwo Asamoah and flew towards Mensah, who adjusted his body very well and powered the ball home with his head.

Ghana knocked the ball around very well at times and came close to scoring from another corner in the 18th minute. This time, Andre Ayew’s corner, also to the near post, was flicked on by Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu and very nearly landed into the far top corner.

Tunisia felt they had a good penalty shout turned down after 30 minutes when Khelifa took a tumble inside the area, which seemed to be a slight clip of his heels. But no penalty was awarded.

But despite dominating possession since the opening goal, Ghana did allow Tunisia back into the game in the 43rd minute.

After failing to clear their defensive lines properly, Zouhaier Dhaouadi was quick to play in a clever lobbed pass into the far post and Khelifa jumped bravely to head home a goal at the far post, and took a knock while throwing his body on the line.

Early into the second half, Jamal Saihi made a late tackle on John Mensah, which ended up in him leaving the field and being replaced by Isaac Vorsah. But Saihi was not even booked, a bad decision by the referee.

Jordan Ayew made an immediate impact when coming on for Sulley Muntari. Suddenly Ghana had more pace going forward and started asking some questions of Tunisia.

In the 75th minute Aymen Mathlouthi made a great reaction save to keep out a first-time right-footed volley by Asamoah Gyan. This, after Gyan had run onto a splendid diagonal pass by Kwadwo Asamoah.

Not a great deal of scoring chances inside the final ten minutes of regulation time and it seemed as if both teams were happy to go to extra time.

Tunisia had the ball in the back of the net after just one minute of extra time, through Issam Jemma, but he was offside.

But in the 101st minute Mathlouthi made a terrible mistake and gifted Ghana with an equaliser. Andre Ayew was well positioned to pounce on the loose ball and place his close-range shot into the net.

The match got a little ugly after this with a red card given to Aymen Abdennour in the 107th minute for an elbow on Andre Ayew.

But the card did not help as Tunisia made some shocking challenges and were lucky not to have more players sent off.

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