Ghana coach Otto Addo says he does not want revenge against Uruguay and Luis Suarez. That’s very noble of him, but I am, and I’m not even Ghanaian.
Addo can take the high road all he wants, but there is more meat in Friday’s showdown than in the entire Uruguayan cattle sector. The Black Stars and The Light Blue (the most inappropriately innocuous team nickname in world football) will be fighting for a place in the knockout rounds, and that means the Ghanaians have a chance to heal the wound left by Suárez’s handball heist in the 2010. World Cup.
Yes, it’s not rational to vilify Suárez for deflecting a shot from goal when he was standing on the goal line in stoppage time, thus receiving a red card that paid off when Asamoah Gyan slammed the penalty into the crossbar. But I don’t care. This is the World Cup. It’s not rational. It’s the war in shorts. Common sense is allowed.
The big puzzle Addo has to solve before Friday is how his troops can “outdo” a nation of masterful street fighters. Uruguay’s distinctive soccer spirit is known as the garra charrúa, literally “the claws of the Charrúas” (the Charrúas were the country’s indigenous nation, destroyed by Spanish settlers). It is usually defined as passion, courage, commitment. But that’s the sanitized version; there is a dark seam of dirt woven into the cloth of the charrúa claw. It’s understandable: when you’re a small soccer country squashed between Brazil’s butt and Argentina’s armpit, you can’t afford to play well.
Overall, both Ghana and Uruguay are less imposing teams than they were in 2010. For the South Americans, Suárez and Edinson Cavani are waning forces, while Darwin Núñez is a tenderloin to Diego Forlán’s steak.
That said, Uruguay coach Diego Alonso will deploy in Federico Valverde and Rodrigo Bentancur a central midfielder of world-class power and sophistication. Ghana’s masterful center Thomas Partey is a match for either of those counterparts, but his fellow deep midfielder Salis Abdul Samed, a 22-year-old employed by French minnows Lens, is not. And there’s even more vulnerability on the wingers, where full-backs Gideon Mensah and Tariq Lamptey are equally young and raw.
As a result, hogging the ball will be difficult for Addo’s men. Ghana’s triumph over the Koreans came despite enduring long spells on their back foot, and only the offensive brilliance of Jordan Ayew and Mohammed Kudus made up for that lingering deficit in control.
So what is the best plan for Ghana? Go big or go home is a crude strategy, but it seems to be working for several rogue nations at this World Cup. The Saudis and the Japanese killed the Argentines and the Germans by playing an insolently high line and scaring the aristocrats by advancing at almost every opportunity. The only concern is that Uruguay is better than the giants at playing efficiently without the ball; they had the remnants of possession against Portugal, but they competed fiercely, nonetheless only undone by a shoddy finish. Therefore, they will not be intimidated by an enthusiastic approach from Black Stars, knowing that they have all the tools to turn a profit on the break.
We can be sure that the effervescent Kudus and the cunning Ayew brothers will once again hold the keys. In terms of attack, Ghana have found a promising seam of confidence and penetration. Scoring five times in just two outings to date, they have already equaled the total they scored in their entire career up to the 2010 quarter-final. They have technical flaws, particularly at the back, but chaos can be an excellent leveler.
A dash of vengeful malice wouldn’t hurt either, especially when injury time rolls around and the risk-reward ratio changes. It’s time for the Black Stars to clap their hands.
