Ghana 0-2 Uruguay; Win wasn’t enough for Urugway to qualify for the RO 16
One of the most thrilling group stages in World Cup history has finally ended with South Korea and Portugal progressing to the Round of 16 and Ghana and Uruguay getting knocked out in Group H. But South Korea qualifying was a real shock cause before the game, it was all assumed that the last spot in the group would be taken by the South American team or the African side.
The game between Ghana and Uruguay was an absolute roller coaster cause both sides were giving it their all as they considered that their match would be a decider as it was very likely that Portugal would beat Korea.
Ghana were playing with their heart out and with a sense of revenge as they wanted to make up for 2010 when Luis Suarez denied them a chance to progress to the semi-finals of the World Cup. In the first half, the African side got a penalty and this was the perfect irony as the rivalry that started with the penalty in 2010, now Ghana had the chance to end it by scoring this one in 2022.
But their captain Andre Ayew missed from the spot and the score was still 0-0 and just 5 minutes after the penalty miss, Uruguay took advantage of it and scored, courtesy of Arrascaeta. After that goal, they did not hold back and scored another one after just 6 minutes which clearly crushed Ghana’s hopes to qualify for the knockout stages.
Going into halftime, Uruguay were leading by 2 goals South Korea and Portugal were drawn by a scoreline of 1-1. So if this score was till the end of the match, it would result in Suarez’s and Ronaldo’s sides going into the knockouts. To avoid that, if Uruguay had managed to score a couple of more goals, they would even rule out the criteria of goal difference even if somehow South Korea managed to win.
But they totally switched off after getting the 2-0 lead and then for the rest of the game, they were on the backfoot which simply meant that they were relying on South Korea not to win their match. However, that’s exactly what happened cause in added time against Portugal, courtesy of a beautiful assist by their captain Son, the Asian side won the match which was simply a miracle and due to that they went through the last 16. All in all, as a neutral, it was surely a good day of football.
