Ghana’s Black Meteors will face South Africa on Friday, November 22 in their final chance to seal qualification to next year’s Olympics in Tokyo.
The Meteors could have secured a spot at the tournament with a win over the Ivory Coast in Tuesday’s semi-final but they suffered a 3-2 loss on penalties after the match ended 2-2 after extra time.
The side will now have to beat South Africa to book a place at the Olympics, a competition the Black Meteors have been absent from since 2004.
South Africa suffered a hammering against Egypt on Tuesday, losing 3-0 to the hosts in the other semi.
Egypt and Ivory Coast fill two of the three spots for Africa at the Olympics, regardless of the results from Friday’s final.
Ghana suffer penalty heartbreak
The Black Meteors’ 3-2 loss on penalties to the Ivory Coast won’t come as a surprise to many Ghanaians given the nation’s struggles from the spot across various competitions.
However, it was still disappointing for many Ghanaians to see the side fall on penalties despite coming from behind twice to level.
Yossouf Dao put Ivory Coast into the first-half lead before captain Yaw Yeboah levelled for the Meteors in the second half.
Dao scored again with six minutes to go to put Ivory Coast 2-1 up but Evans Mensah found an equaliser in injury time to take the match to extra-time.
With neither side able to find another goal in the 30 minutes, the match proceeded to penalties.
Ghana’s penalty hoodoo against the Ivorians continued as misses from Emmanuel Cudjoe, Evans Mensah and Kwabena Owusu gave their opponents a 3-2 win.
Samuel Obeng and Emmanuel Lomotey were the only Ghanaians to find the net.
Ghana will now have to beat South Africa on Friday to seal a spot at next year’s Olympics while the Ivory Coast face host Egypt in the final.
Watch the highlights of the Black Meteors’ loss below:
