Ghana’s national Amputee Football team, the Black Challenge, has beaten Africa’s three- time champions Liberia 3:2 to win the sixth Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football (CANAF) cup in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The two teams ended the first half goalless , but the Liberians return and took a lead in the 15th minute of the second half whiles Ghana’s Yussif Yahaya equalised after two minutes, taking the game into an extra time.
Without wasting their chances in the extra time, the Ghanaian side scored their second goal through a connected pass by Mubarik Mohammed.
The skillful Liberian team, were very organised in defense and one player on top, made it difficult for the Ghanaian side to penetrate. They later took the game to attacking the Ghanaian side.
A mistake by the black Challenge’s goalkeeper, Bernard Duodoo, gave their opponent a goal to put the two teams on same pal, before
Mubarik scored a magical goal to shatter the Liberians dream of lifting their fourth trophy.
This gives the Ghanaian team their second trophy after 14 years since they lifted the trophy in it’s maiden edition 2007.
The Black Challenge, with just one player on the bench during matches, went into every game with determination and won their group stages with a 3-0 win over Egypt and a 4-0 walkover Nigeria, scoring a total of 17 goals in the five matches they played throughout the tournament.
The team mainly foreign based players with only the goalkeeper based in Ghana, advanced to the semifinals after beating Kenya 4-0. In the semifinals, the Black Challenge humiliated defending African and World Champions Angola 3-1 to book their ticket to the finals.
Many spectators and some technical team members have described the victory as ” mysterious”, looking at circumstances that led to the team’s participation in the competition.
The Ghanaians played each game with only one player on the bench.
In the quarterfinal match for instance, they played Kenya with no man on bench when the team’s captain was on suspension.
Could this be a motivation to the Blackstars as they seek to break a thirty-three years drought in Afcon tournament?
