Colombia 1-0 Ghana: Arias sends Black Stars bowing out of World Cup at round of 32
· Yahoo Sports
Ollie Whitmore, Chief football news reporter
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Jhon Arias sent Colombia through to the round of 16 for the first time in eight years at the World Cup at the expense of Ghana at the Kansas City Stadium.
The Palmeiras midfielder opened the scoring just 14 minutes in with his first touch finding the bottom right corner, with is country missing a horde of chances either side of half time to extend their advantage.
Luis Diaz was unfortunate to see his goal ruled out for the second game running, but Arias’ strike proved to be enough to set up a round of 16 clash with Canada while the Black Stars bow out having ended their 12 year wait to return to the knockouts.
And some strike it was, side-footing a cross from Luis Suarez to the right of goal into the bottom corner as Ghana never quite got going in a very one-sided first half.
Diaz then went close firing an effort not far past the post as Ghana failed to clear Gustavo Puerta’s chipped ball into the penalty area, before a header from Johan Mojica was parried brilliantly by Lawrence Ati-Zigi.
The Black Stars’ goalkeeper would make seven saves in the standout performance of the match, but wasn’t able to keep out Diaz’s tap in on the stretch and had to rely on the flag raising for offside.
The Bayern Munich winger looked nailed on to double Colombia’s advantage as the game edged closer to the latter stages, put through on goal once again by Puerta, but Ati-Zigi got down quickly to make the save one-on-one.
Just the one goal was the difference between the two sides as Colombia continued their resurgence from failing to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar for years ago to making the round of 16 for the first time since 2018.
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