The 2010 FIFA World Cup side of Ghana reached the quarter-finals of the Coupe du Monde to create history by becoming the only third African team to reach the last Eight of the competition.
Cameroon had done it first in 1990 and Senegal repeated the feat in 2002 in Korea/Japan and during the first ever World Cup staged on African soil, the Black Stars of Milovan Rajevac matched the Indomitable Lions and Teranga Lions.
President Akufo Addo has challenged the Black Stars to win the next Africa Cup of Nations and reach the semi-finals of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
But do you remember the World Cup team of Rajevac?
That resulted in Abedi Pele declaring Asamoah Gyan, Andre Ayew, Sulley Muntari , Kevin-Prince Boateng and friends as the best ever Ghanaian side of the last three decades.
“The 1992, 2010 and 2015 teams were strong in their own merit. I wouldn’t want to go far in my answer but to my knowledge I was in South Africa during the World Cup and the Ghana team was amazing. I saw Ghana play against USA and Uruguay and I can say the best team was in 2010,” he told GTV.
“Then the team had performed well in Angola in the AFCON and they were strong, they had everything. The team was gelling and I admired the boys so much in the match against Uruguay. I was sitting with former US president [Bill] Clinton when we played against their national team and he was impressed with our performance so I’ll say the 2010 was my best team,” he concluded.
The team opened their account with a 1-0 win over Serbia with an Asamoah Gyan penalty before drawing 1-1 with Australia with another Gyan effort from the spot. In the last group game Ghana lost to Germany by a goal to nil but qualified from the group alongside the Germans.
In the Round of 16 came a difficult game against USA – who Ghana has beaten in 2006 and came in for a serious revenge but the Black Stars would reign supreme once again in Rustenberg.
Prince Boateng with the opener in just the 5th minute with a low shot but Landon Donovan equalized with a 62nd minute penalty. Afte that the game was taken to extra time and there came the magic moment of Africa’s all-time leader of goals at the World Cup – Asamoah Gyan.
The ‘Babyjet’ in the third minute latched onto a high long ball from Andre Ayew, chesting it down and holding off two defenders before scoring the winner. What a goal !, the commentator screamed.
In the quater-finals Uruguay eliminated the Ghanaian team on penalties following a 1-1 draw after 120 minutes as Gyan sadly failed to convert a 120th minute penalty that could have sent the West African team to the semis – the first ever for an African side.
But despite this failure, this team were on a different level as said by the country’s greatest ever player.