Join Africa summary -  Ever watched the movie Cinderella? Black Stars are in the same position and they're going to perform magic on June 27th.   Known as the Brazilians of Africa, the Black Stars come face-to-face with the "real McCoy" on Tuesday.  Thereafter Brazil will be known as the Ghanaians of South America.    This is because the "African National team" are bent on scoring the Samba Boys, and they will!

 

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Accra, June 26 (DPA) When Ghana and Brazil play their World Cup round of 16 match in Dortmund Tuesday, Africa’s lone ranger in the tournament will have the entire continent rooting for it.

First-timers Ghana went into the World Cup far from favourites among the African countries to advance, given their dismal performance at the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt in January and the ‘Group of Death’ it found itself in at the tournament.

Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) had been the toast of the continent, with their brilliant individual players led by Didier Drogba, and had been given an outside chance to squeeze through in a group that included the Netherlands, Argentina and Serbia-Montenegro.

Where Ivory Coast failed, Togo were consumed by a serious internal squabble over money, Angola showed inexperience and Tunisia wilted. It was Ghana’s ‘Black Stars’ who shone.

Ghana recovered from a 2-0 loss to Italy to beat the Czech Republic 2-0 and USA 2-1, to emerge as the sole African country to reach the knockout round.

All the African teams, apart from Tunisia, were appearing for the first time and had their baptism of fire on the big stage, although Angola and Ivory Coast were clearly not disgraced.   Continue story