Captain of Ghana’s glorious Black Satellites team which won the U-20 World Cup in 2009 has disclosed that the feat was achieved because they were driven by Ghana’s football history with Brazil and how near the trophy was to them than they had expected.
Prior to the final against Brazil in the final of the 2009 World Cup in Egypt, Ghana had engaged Brazil a number of times in tough encounters at various levels of football including the Black Stars’ 3-0 defeat to South Americans in the round of 16 of the 2006 World Cup.
Again, a significant number of players in that Black Satellites team who had featured for the Black Starlets previously had eliminated Brazil in the U-17 World Cup in 2007 where Brazil got beaten in the round of 16 courtesy of a solitary goal by Isaac Donkor.
According to Andre Ayew who now captains the senior national team, those head-to-head moments as well as getting closer to the trophy were enough inspiration to play their hearts out for the title.
“Ghana has a special history with Brazil when it comes to youth football. Even before my time, meetings between the two teams were always tense. To be honest, we didn’t want to play the Seleçao in an earlier round as they were the best team in the tournament,” Ayew reflected in an interview with FIFA.
“In the final, it was a whole other story. We were aware that we could make history and didn’t want to let the chance pass us by. We told ourselves that there were only 90 or 120 minutes separating us from a world title.”
Ghana overcame South Americans despite playing the majority of the game with one man down after defender Daniel Addo was sent off in the 37th minute and remains the only African side to win the U-20 World Cup.
