Ghana national football team: Difference between revisions

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[[vi:Đội tuyển bóng đá quốc gia Ghana]]
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[[uk:Збірна Гани з футболу]]
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Revision as of 08:38, 5 October 2008

Ghana
Nickname(s)The Black Stars
AssociationGhana Football Association
ConfederationCAF (Africa)
Head coachSerbia Milovan Rajevac[1]
CaptainStephen Appiah
Most capsAbédi Pelé (73)[2]
Top scorerAbédi Pelé (33)
Home stadiumOhene Djan Sports Stadium
FIFA codeGHA
First colours
Second colours
FIFA ranking
Current20
Highest14 (February, April, May 2008)
Lowest89 (June 2004)
First international
Gold Coast (British colony) Gold Coast 1-0 Nigeria
(Accra, Gold Coast; 28 May 1950)
Biggest win
 Kenya 0-13 Ghana 
(Nairobi, Kenya; 12 December 1965)[3]
Biggest defeat
 Brazil 8-2 Ghana 
(São José do Rio Preto, Brazil; 27 March 1996)[4][5]
World Cup
Appearances1 (first in 2006)
Best resultRound 2, 2006
African Nations Cup
Appearances16 (first in 1963)
Best resultWinners, 1963, 1965,
1978, 1982
Olympic medal record
Men's Football
Bronze medal – third place 1992 Barcelona[6] Team

The Ghana national football team, popularly known as the Black Stars, is the national association football team of Ghana and is controlled by the Ghana Football Association. Before gaining independence from Great Britain in 1957, the country played as the Gold Coast.

Although the team did not qualify for the senior FIFA World Cup until 2006 they had actually qualified for five straight Olympic Games Football Tournaments when the tournament was still a full senior National Team competition. The team have won the African Cup of Nations four times[7] (in 1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982), making Ghana the second most successful team in the contest's history, behind Egypt.

Ghanaian teams has enjoyed considerable success at in FIFA's age-restricted tournaments. The Ghana U17 team, the Black Starlets, have won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup title twice and finished as runner-up twice. The Ghana U20 team, the Black Satellites, have also finished as runner-up at the FIFA Under-20 World Cup twice. The Ghana Olympic Team[6], the Black Meteors, became the first African Country to win a medal in Football at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

After going through 2005 unbeaten, Ghana won the FIFA World Rankings Most Improved team of the year award and they reached the second round of the 2006 Germany World Cup.

History

The Ghana Amateur Football Association was founded in 1957, soon after the country's independence, and was affiliated to both CAF and FIFA the following year, Englishman George Ainsley being appointed coach of the national team.

In 1960, the Black Stars played Spanish giants Real Madrid, who were at the time Spanish, European and intercontinental champions, and drew 3-3.

Charles Kumi Gyamfi became coach in 1961, and Ghana won successive African Cup of Nations titles, in 1963 and 1965, and achieved their record win, 13-0 away to Kenya, shortly after the second of these. They also reached the final of the tournament in 1968 and 1970, losing 1-0 on each occasion, to DR Congo and Sudan respectively. Their domination of this tournament earned the country the nickname of "the Brazil of Africa" in the 1960s[8]. The team had no success in FIFA World Cup qualification during this era, and failed to qualify for three successive African Cup of Nations in the 1970s, but qualified for the Olympic Games Football Tournaments, reaching the quarter finals in 1964 and withdrawing on political grounds in 1976 and 1980.

Ghana again won the African Cup of Nations in 1978, retaining the Abdelaziz Abdallah Salem Trophy in perpetuity for having won it three times, and 1982, but a relatively barren period followed, with the full national team dominating the short lived West African Nations Cup from 1982-87, but making little progress in continent-wide competitions until the appointment of Burkhard Ziese as coach in 1991. The 1992 African Cup of Nations, after three failures to reach the final tournament, saw Ghana finish second, beaten on penalties in the final by Côte d'Ivoire.

Disharmony among the squad, which eventually lead to parliamentary and executive intervention to settle issues between two of the team, Abedi Pele and Anthony Yeboah, may have played some part in the failure of the team to build on the successes of the national underage teams. Ghana slipped to 89th place in the FIFA World Rankings, but a new generation of players who went to the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship final became the core of the team at the 2002 African Cup of Nations and the 2004 Olympic Games[6], and were undefeated for a year in 2005 and reached the finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the first time the team had reached the global stage of the tournament. Ghana started with a 2-0 defeat to eventual champions Italy, but wins over the Czech Republic (2-0) and USA (2-1) saw them through to the second round, where they were beaten 3-0 by Brazil.

Team honours

World Cup record

African Nations Cup record

The Ghana national team at the 2008 African Cup of Nations before the quarter-final match against Nigeria.
   
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