The Black Stars of Ghana beat São Tomé and Príncipe 1-0 in their second AFCON 2021 Qualifier pon Monday, November 18, 2019.
A Jordan Ayew second-half penalty was the difference between the two teams on the day.
However, the main talking point after Ghana’s encounter with São Tomé and Príncipe was definitely the poor state of the astroturf.
Prior to the encounter, concerns had been raised about the pitch by head coach, Kwesi Appiah and Atletico Madrid star, Thomas Partey.
The Stars suffered more in the opening stages of the match due to the artificial surface at the July 12 National Stadium but after a while, they managed to string passes together and built up a bit of a pattern.
Although quite average, the Black Stars triumphed over the Falcons and True Parrots at the July 12 National Stadium.
After the victory, Andre Ayew highlighted the difficulty in playing on that kind of turf.
“I want to congratulate the boys for this win.
The pitch was terrible. We dominated the game, I think we had about 80% ball possession and we could have scored more but it was a very difficult pitch to play on”.
The Black Stars now tops Group C with six points and we will play Sudan in the third round of qualifiers in August 2020.