Two goals from forward, Kwabena Owusu, beat Mali 2-0 and sent Ghana’s Black Meteors to the semi-finals of the U-23 AFCON tournament in Egypt.
The team needed to find a victory while hoping that Egypt would defeat Cameroon to enable them go to the last four but the needed intensity was absent in the first half.
It was 45 minutes of misplacing passes and a lack of creativity and the Meteors struggled to get going.
However, as has been their trait all through the journey to the tournament, they improved in the second half and started asking questions and it was one of Ibrahim Tanko’s second half changes that had the greatest impact on the game.
Kwabena Owusu rose to meet a cross from Kingsley Fobi and headed the ball across Malian goalie, Samuel Diarra to open the scoring in the 74th minute.
Ghana then added the second in the 85th minute and it was Owusu again who found the net. He latched onto a flick on by Michael Agbekpornu and managed to finish past Diarra.
While Ghana needed to win, they needed a favour from Egypt and they got it via a 2-1 victory for the Young Pharoahs. Mostafa Mohammed scored twice with Mbuh Ayuk Eric scoring for the Cameroonians.
In the end, Ghana finished second in Group A on 4 points ahead of Cameroon (also on 4 points) by virtue of having scored 5 goals in three group matches. Egypt topped the group on 9 points with Mali on zero points.
Should the Meteors win their semi-final clash, they will get an automatic place in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic football tournament. Failure to do so and they will have to win the 3rd place match to get the ticket.
How Ghana and Mali lined up
📜 TEAM NEWS: 🇲🇱 vs. 🇬🇭
The Black Meteors need to win to stand a chance at qualifying, will they get the 3⃣ points? 🤔#TotalAFCONU23 pic.twitter.com/p15L7ZD1bm
— CAF (@CAF_Online) November 14, 2019
Massive celebrations
Party time! 🇬🇭🥳 #TotalAFCONU23 pic.twitter.com/JvdK8jbfKf
— CAF (@CAF_Online) November 14, 2019
Man of the Match: Kwabena Owusu
