{"id":288261,"date":"2017-01-25T20:53:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T20:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=288261"},"modified":"2017-01-25T20:53:19","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T20:53:19","slug":"afcon-2017-ghana-face-dr-congo-in-quarters-after-loss-to-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=288261","title":{"rendered":"AFCON 2017: Ghana face DR Congo in quarters after loss to Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ghana will face DR Congo in the quarter-final of the AFCON after finishing as runners-up to Egypt following a 1-0 loss to the Pharaohs on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Roma\u2019s Mohammed Salah scored the only goal of the game for the Pharoahs early in the first half, firing into the top corner from a free-kick with the Ghanaian keeper, Razak Brimah stranded.<\/p>\n

The Egyptians kept the ball well for the rest of the half and restricted the Black Stars to speculative shots from outside the box and half chances.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/p>\n

The Black Stars had made four changes from their previous game, a win over Mali, with Jordan Ayew, Mubarak Wakaso, Thomas Partey and Frank Acheampong dropping to the bench.<\/p>\n

The Black Stars had already qualified for the knockout stages but the Egyptians needed at least a point to be sure of qualification and despite a cagey start, grew into the game after Salah’s goal.<\/p>\n

\"egypt\"<\/p>\n

Ghana’s most dangerous player so far at the tournament, Christian Atsu was well marshalled by the Egyptian defence who clearly recognised his threat.<\/p>\n

Andre Ayew proved to be Ghana’s outlet for much of the half but his crosses from the left were well dealt with by the experience Egyptian keeper El Hadary.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/p>\n

Things went from bad to worse for the Black Stars as captain Asamoah Gyan had to be taken off with an injury.<\/p>\n

Jordan Ayew was brought on but struggled to make an impact as the half wound down.<\/p>\n

The Black Stars started the second half brightly but the Egyptians contained the early threat.<\/p>\n

\"4\"<\/p>\n

Ghana showed more attacking intent in the second period as they looked to maintain their unbeaten run in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Christian Atsu was put through on goal with a superb pass from Harrison Afful but the winger was flagged offside as his shot went wide.<\/p>\n

Atsu\u00a0had lifted his game but the Egyptians were looking quite comfortable at this point and again were limited to shots from range, with Agyeman Badu having a\u00a0go as well.<\/p>\n

Jordan Ayew beat a couple of defenders to create space\u00a0for himself but his shot was pushed out for a corner by El Hadary.<\/p>\n

\"3\"<\/p>\n

Grant made a\u00a0couple of changes including bringing on striker Bernard Terkpetey for his competitive debut\u00a0to no avail and the Egyptians picked up their third straight win over the Black Stars.<\/p>\n

Egypt will now face Group C\u00a0runners-up Morocco while Ghana take on the Congolese who topped the group which included defending champions Ivory Coast<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Edwin Kwakofi\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghana will face DR Congo in the quarter-final of the AFCON after finishing as runners-up to Egypt following a 1-0 loss to the Pharaohs on Wednesday. Roma\u2019s Mohammed Salah scored the only goal of the game for the Pharoahs early in the first half, firing into the top corner from a free-kick with the Ghanaian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"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":[142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288261","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=288261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=288261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=288261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=288261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}