JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters) – Ghana gave Africa a much-celebrated first victory in the continent’s inaugural World Cup though it was a bitter-sweet moment for their Serbian coach to have masterminded defeat of his homeland yesterday.
Despite missing inspirational midfielder Michael Essien through injury, Milovan Rajevac’s Ghana won 1-0 through a penalty and had late chances to make it more after a sending off reduced the highly rated Serbs to 10 men.
Day Three’s earlier game followed a similar plot: a sending off for Algeria preceded the goal that gave unfancied Slovenia their first ever win in major tournament finals.
Algeria will rue an awful gaffe from their goalkeeper, though hardly as embarrassing as Robert Green’s for England against the United States. His comical error on Saturday night must rank as one of the worst in World Cup history.
Though light on goals — only nine in seven games so far — South Africa 2010 has provided plenty of on-field incident and the hosts are proud to have defied sceptics who said Africa could never handle such a massive world sporting event.
African pride swelled in Pretoria as fans and players danced alike in the Loftus Versfeld stadium to celebrate the powerful Ghananian Black Stars’ win from Asamoah Gyan’s sweet penalty.
“Feel it, Ghana is here!” read one banner carried by dancing fans from the west African nation, dreaming of breaking South America and Europe’s stranglehold on the World Cup.
Ghana reached the last 16 in 2006 and are one of Africa’s best hopes among its six competing teams to go further than the previous best showings of Cameroon and Senegal who reached the quarter-finals in 1990 and 2002 respectively.
The day belonged to Slovenia too, however.
Having not won a game in previous showings at Euro 2000 and World Cup 2002, the Slovenians danced for joy after going top of Group C following England’s 1-1 draw with the United States.
In the game’s only goal, Algerian stopper Faouzi Chaouchi fumbled Slovenia captain Robert Koren’s shot.
NEW JALUBANI
BALL ANGERS COACHES
Off the field, South Africa 2010 has had a successful start, with little trouble beyond minor robberies of journalists and a few injuries in crushes at fan parks.
With millions around the globe glued to the world’s most watched sporting event, there were ugly scenes in Bangladesh when fans rioted after a power outage, causing 30 injuries.
On a happier note, reigning champions Italy, under little pressure after being largely written off by pundits, have made a home from home in South Africa thanks to a plentiful supply of pizza, pasta and even Italian plug sockets.
“We’ve tried to make it as much like Italy as possible so people feel at home,” Vincenzo Santoro, one of various Italian barmen flown over, said of the Casa Azzurri (Home of the Blues).
Brazil’s precociously talented striker Robinho is looking forward to their start on Tuesday, but worries his team mates cannot follow his dancing goal celebrations. “There are a lot of stiff waists in the team — Kaka, Luis Fabuloso,” he said.
“I want to see if they can dance a little better.”
Controversy over the new high-bouncing Jabulani ball, named after a Zulu word meaning “to celebrate”, resurfaced with criticism from Algeria and Slovenia’s coaches after their game.
Over and over in the match players, who also had to contend with a semi-synthetic pitch, overhit passes or failed to control the ball as it sprang off the surface.
Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk was also critical.
“So far every free kick I saw went far over the goal while cross passes proved hard to control,” he said after training at Soccer City ahead of Monday’s Group E opener against Denmark.
Though not playing, England and Argentina remained big talking points on Sunday, for opposite reasons.
England’s 1-1 draw was not a complete disaster, as they face supposedly weaker Algeria and Slovenia in their other Group C matches, but Green’s farcical mistake will haunt them for years.
“Hand of Clod” was the cruel headline in two U.K. tabloids, playing on the “Hand of God” description of Diego Maradona’s controversial goal against England in 1986.
Argentina, whom critics said could not gel under quixotic manager Diego Maradona, were basking in deserved praise after world player of the year Lionel Messi lit up their 1-0 defeat of Nigeria on Saturday with a brilliant display.
Even Venezuela’s president, best known for his socialist politics and love of baseball, joined in. “It could have been five goals. Congratulations Comrade Maradona!” Hugo Chavez said.