World Cup 2014: Ghana’s performance in three words

Ghana’s poor run in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil has received more damning descriptions from the international public.

According to a study conducted by the Cambridge University Press, the top words used by various media reports worldwide in relation to Ghana’s World Cup campaign were “money”, “strike”, “powerful”.

These words stem from the Black Stars’ troubles associated with rows over the payment of appearance fees to the players and the airlifting of three million US dollars in cash to Brazil to settle these payments.

The gesture, which was done by the Government of Ghana and was revealed by the Deputy Sports Minister, Joseph Yammin, became the subject of strong media coverage especially in Brazil.

Cambridge’s study is a compilation of  frequently-used descriptives in the global media  for World Cup participants into a database.

Other African countries were also given very instructive descriptions.

Words used to describe Cameroon’s World Cup were “hapless”, “battle”, and “chaotic” while Cote d’Ivoire’s stay in Brazil were tagged by words such as “pace”, “physical,” and “struggle”.

The more relatively successful African nations in Algeria and Nigeria were given tags of “determined”, “pride”, “together” and “inexperienced”, “speed” and “tough” respectively.

Germany’s run to the final of the competition has been given the labels of “”powerful”, “focused” and “committed” while the hosts Brazil were often called “emotional”, “popular” and “desperate”.

Fellow World Cup finalists, Argentina, were described with “confident”, “flair” and “unconvincing” but the team they defeated in the semi-finals, Netherlands, were given the labels “rampaging”, strategy” and stunning”.

The Three Lions of England ended the World Cup with a point from three matches and were termed “exciting”, “inexperienced” and “disappointing”.

The database was created to gauge media and public perceptions of the various teams taking part in the World Cup.

Below is the full list of descriptives in the Cambridge University Press’ databatse.