Since 1957, the Ghana national football team has represented Ghana in men’s international football. The team has twenty members, including the technical crew. [5] The squad is known as the Black Stars after the Black Star of Africa on Ghana’s flag. It is controlled by the Ghana Football Organisation (GFA), Ghana’s regulatory body for football and Africa’s oldest football association (founded in 1920). Before 1957, the squad was known as the Gold Coast. The squad is a FIFA and CAF member.
Ghana qualified for the first time for the FIFA World Cup in 2006. The squad has won the Africa Cup of Nations four times (1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982), and has placed second five times (1968, 1970, 1992, 2010, and 2015). [6] After going undefeated in 2005, Ghana earned the FIFA Best Mover of the Year Award and advanced to the second round of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. They were only the third African team to reach the World Cup quarter-finals at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, and they played in their third World Cup in a row in 2014.
History
It drew 3-3 with Real Madrid, the Spanish champions, past European champions, and intercontinental champions at the time, on August 19, 1962, in the Accra Sports Stadium. [7]
After Charles Kumi Gyamfi took over as coach in 1961, the team won consecutive African Cup of Nations championships in 1963 and 1965, including a 13-2 victory away against Kenya. It reached the tournament finals in 1968 and 1970, losing 1-0 to DR Congo and Sudan, respectively. In the 1960s, its dominance in this tournament earned it the moniker “the Black Stars of Africa.” [8]
It failed to qualify for three consecutive African Cup of Nations tournaments in the 1970s, but qualified for the Olympic Games football tournaments, becoming the first team from Sub-Saharan Africa to do so,[9] reaching the quarter-finals in 1964 and withdrawing after qualifying in 1976 and 1980. It went on to win the African Cup of Nations in 1982. After three previous failures to reach the competition final, it finished second in the 1992 African Cup of Nations.
Prior to the year 2000, discord within the squad may have played a role in the team’s failure to build on the successes of the national underage teams in the 1990s, and a generation of Black Stars players who went to the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship final became the “core” of the team at the 2002 African Cup of Nations. The Black Stars began with a 2-0 loss to eventual champions Italy, but victories over the Czech Republic (2-0) and the United States (2-1) got them to the second round, where they were defeated 3-0 by Brazil. [10]
Under the leadership of head coach Milovan Rajevac, the Black Stars went on to win the group and become the first African team to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
It is in Group D with Germany, Serbia, and Australia in the final competition. It advanced to the round of 16 and faced the United States, which it defeated 2-1 in extra time to become the third African country to reach the World Cup quarterfinals. It then lost a penalty shootout to Uruguay in the quarter-finals after missing a penalty kick in extra time after what would have been the winning goal to send Ghana to the semi-finals was prevented by Luis Suárez’s handball, for which he was then shown a red card. [11]
It became the only African side to reach four straight semi-finals of the CAF Africa Cup of Nations twice in 2013, the first time since 1963 to 1970. [12]
FIFA placed it high enough for it to begin qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in the second round. It topped the group and qualified for the 2014 World Cup finals in November 2013, defeating Egypt 7-3 on aggregate in a two-leg play-off. [13] For the finals, it was assigned to Group G, which included Germany, Portugal, and the United States. [14] It finished the group stages with one draw and was the only team in the tournament not to lose to Germany.
It reached the final of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations before losing on penalties to Ivory Coast. While their 2017 Africa Cup of Nations campaign concluded in fourth place – the third in four consecutive tournaments – in the World Cup qualifications, it finished behind Egypt and Uganda in their last group. Tunisia eliminated it in the Round of 16 in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.
In 2021, Rajevac was reinstated, and the squad failed to win a match at the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations, losing 2-3 to debutants the Comoros following an André Ayew red card, finishing bottom of its group and failing to advance beyond the group stage for the first time since 2006. On the away goals rule, it drew 0-0 with Nigeria and 1-1 in Nigeria to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. [15]
