Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko have been involved in a number of blockbuster matches over the years.
Today’s encounter at the Accra Sports Stadium is billed to one of the biggest given the hype surrounding the game and what’s at stake for both sides.
Hearts of Oak only lead their fiercest rivals at the top of the Ghana Premier League table on goal difference with four games to play, so this game is a potential title-decider.
However, a couple of recent meetings between these two sides were actual title deciders.
The two-legged 2004 Confederations Cup final was seen as the peak of Ghana football, with the two biggest clubs in the country facing off for one of Africa’s most prestigious trophies.
Hearts topped their group which included Cameroonian sides Coton Sport FC and Sable FC and South Africa’s Santos FC, winning four of their six matches.
And despite losing two of their games, Kotoko also finished first in a group that had Enugu Rangers, Al-Hilal and Petro de Luanda.
In the final, a tense first leg at the Accra Sports Stadium ended 1-1, after a late Louis Agyemang strike for Hearts cancelled out Michael Osei’s goal for the Porcupine Warriors.
In the second leg in Kumasi, another late Hearts goal, this time by Lawrence Adjah Tetteh stopped Kotoko from claiming the trophy after Charles Taylor had given them the lead.
The match went to a penalty shootout, with Edmund Owusu-Ansah and Amankwah Mireku missing the first kicks for Kotoko and Hearts respectively.
After the two sides scored their next four penalties, the shootout went to sudden death, with both teams finding the net on their next three tries.
Crucially, however, Joe Hendricks missed for Kotoko, with Michael Donkor hitting the back of the net with his effort to hand Hearts a famous victory.
