Come on Ghana!

Depending on the outcome of their game against Uganda (kickoff 16:30 GMT, in half an hour's time... I'd forgotten the UK was on Summer Time), Ghana have an extremely good chance of making it to the 2006 World Cup in Germany!

I am so stoked!

Here is an earlier article (from June) about Ghana's shock overtaking of South Africa in the group standing.

Mixed fortunes for African heavyweights
3 September 2005
by FIFAworldcup.com

Excerpt from a longer article on the FIFA website you can read here.


In Group 2, South Africa had hoped to keep up the pressure on leaders Ghana but saw their chances of making the 2006 finals all but disappear in the steaming evening heat of Ouagadougou. Burkina Faso won for the first time in five meetings with Bafana Bafana and did so in emphatic style, led by the expert finishing of the Ivorian-born striker Abdoulaye Cisse.

Cisse, from Montpellier in France's Ligue 2, opened the scoring and added the third from the penalty spot early in the second half. In between there was a goal from the Bordeaux teenager Kebe Yahia, whose sublime finish with a chip over the South African goalkeeper Hans Vonk underlined his potential.

South Africa got a late consolation goal from Sibusiso Zuma but they can only hope now that Ghana slip up on Sunday at home against an Uganda team who have not won away from home in the qualifying competition to date. If Ghana win and Congo DR fail to beat the Cape Verde Islands, then Ghana will qualify - something which will come as a major disappointment for the South Africans, who are now expected to turn to the rebuilding of their team for the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals.

(c) 2005 FIFA