Ghana break Africa’s duck

Three off as USA deny Italy

Portugal end 40-year wait

—– Ghana’s shock defeat of Czech Republic - second in the FIFA world rankings - blows World Cup Group E wide apart with their thoroughly deserved 2-0 win in Cologne.
The Black Stars first-ever World Cup finals win, and the first by an African nation in the 2006 tournament, is set up by Asamoah Gyan’s 70-second opener.
Gyan can afford the luxury of becoming the first player to miss a penalty in Germany ‘06 following the 66th minute incident that saw Czech Tomas Ujfalusi sent-off.
A succession of brilliant saves by Chelsea’s Petr Cech kept the Czechs in the game until Sulley Muntari finished off a fine move to seal the points in the 82nd minute.
Ghana’s Serbian coach Ratomir Dujkovic beamed: “Petr Cech is an excellent keeper and he stopped it from being four or five-nil. It was a very tough game but my players played excellently. I was only surprised it wasn’t more than 2-0.”

—– After a very disappointing showing in their first game, USA bounce back with a gutsy display to hold highly-fancied Italy to a 1-1 draw in Kaiserlautern.
The match is marred by three dismissals (it’s only the fourth time in the history of the World Cup finals that three players have been sent-off in one game) as Uruguayan ref Jorge Larrionda is given little choice in showing red to two of the three offenders.
Alberto Gilardino’s 22nd minute header looked to have sent Italy on the way to an expected victory but an horrendous sliced own goal by Cristian Zaccardo soon brought the States level.
That was quickly followed by a disgraceful elbow by Daniele De Rossi who was on his way off the pitch and, it is to be hoped, out of the World Cup as blood streamed from the face of his victim, Brian McBride.
It was ten versus ten just before the break as a two-footed lunge by USA defender Pablo Mastroeni was greeted with an inevitable red card.
Seconds into the second-half, the States were reduced to nine men when Mastroeni’s fellow centre-back Eddie Pope can count himself unfortunate to be shown a second yellow card.
With the odds stacked against them, USA refused to buckle so all four nations still have a chance of progressing as Group E goes into it’s final game.

—– For the first time since 1966, Portugal are through to the second stage of a World Cup finals after their 2-0 win against Iran in Frankfurt - and Luiz Felipe Scolari’s’ team still have a group game to play.
Portugal had to be patient to breakdown Iran’s dogged resistance, and it was Barcelona’s Deco who found a way through on 62 minutes with a fabulous 20-yard strike.
To mark the occasion, another 40-year wait ended on 78 minutes. Portugal were awarded their first World Cup finals penalty since 28 July 1966.
That was converted by the great Eusebio in the 3rd/4th Play-Off against USSR at Wembley. Today, Cristiano Ronaldo did the same to close the four decade gap.

—– The scandal of this and all contemporary World Cup finals is the black market sale of match tickets for vastly inflated prices.
At last, FIFA have found one of the culprits - and it is one of their own.
Following an undercover investigation by The Mail on Sunday, Ismail Bhamjee of Botswana - a member of FIFA’s executive committee - is ordered to leave Germany as soon as possible and resign from all his World Cup duties after he admits selling twelve World Cup tickets at three times their face value.
They were for England’s game with Trinidad & Tobago. Strictly speaking, there should only have been around 4,000 England supporters in the stadium so FIFA now have to find out who sold the other 30,000-plus tickets to the other England fans in the ground.