{"id":124887,"date":"2015-06-14T18:19:26","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T18:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=124887"},"modified":"2015-06-14T18:19:26","modified_gmt":"2015-06-14T18:19:26","slug":"seventh-heaven-ghana-thrash-mauritius-in-afcon-2017-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=124887","title":{"rendered":"Seventh heaven: Ghana thrash Mauritius in Afcon 2017 opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Black Stars&#8217; 2017 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying campaign kicked-off in emphatic fashion with a stunning 7-1 victory over minnows Mauritius on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Going up against Mauritius expectations from fans for an easy\u00a0win was not misplaced.They didn&#8217;t have to wait long following a blistering first half, which saw Ghana find the net five times.<\/p>\n<p>Harrison Afful delivered a trademark cross which was struck in\u00a0by winger Cristian Atsu in the 10th minute for the Stars&#8217; first.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;f3njh5xzalbw5i28i4aPstZXnXhvOcSQ&#8221;]Ghana&#8217;s fullbacks were clearly in the mood to run the show as Baba Rahman gave out tutorials on the art of crossing with Jordan Ayew arriving to send a low shot to the bottom right hand corner to put Ghana 2-0 up.<\/p>\n<p>The game had the look of a training session about it and to the anticipation of most fans skipper Asamoah Gyan was at hand to put his name on the scoresheet after a carefully weighted lob from Jordan Ayew dropped perfectly for Ghana&#8217;s all time highest scorer,\u00a0who finished with a low volley.<\/p>\n<p>Gyan displayed his scoring dexterity by getting into the 6 yard box of Mauritius to flick the ball into the net with his head\u00a0and put Ghana up by 4-0.<\/p>\n<p>A 32nd minute set piece from the right caught the entire Black Stars defence napping as J Sophie pounced on a rebound to give Mauritius a consolation goal.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Ayew and Leicester City&#8217;s Jeffrey Schlupp grabbed Ghana&#8217;s 5th and 6th.<\/p>\n<p>David Accam was not to be left out of the fun as he latched onto a loose ball just inside the penalty box to score his first international goal for Ghana after more lackluster defending from Islanders.<\/p>\n<p>Ghana and Rwanda both have 3 points after the first round of qualifiers.The Black Stars however top Group H with a superior goal difference.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By:Benjamin Nketsia\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KojoNketsia\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @KojoNketsia<\/a><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=\/^http:\/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+':\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Black Stars&#8217; 2017 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying campaign kicked-off in emphatic fashion with a stunning 7-1 victory over minnows Mauritius on Sunday. Going up against Mauritius expectations from fans for an easy\u00a0win was not misplaced.They didn&#8217;t have to wait long following a blistering first half, which saw Ghana find the net five [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":124888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-124887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/124888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}