AL WAKRAH, Qatar — There was to be no redemption. Not for Ghana, and certainly not for Uruguay. At the end of a frenzied game, as Luis Suárez sobbed on the bench, Uruguay’s players surrounded the German referee Daniel Siebert, raging at the non-awarding of two second-half penalties, including one in stoppage time. They had won 2–0, but it was not enough. South Korea had beaten Portugal with a dramatic stoppage-time goal from Hwang Hee-chan in the group’s simultaneous finale to take second-place on a goals-scored tiebreaker.
For 12 years, one moment has haunted Ghanaian football. What if Suárez had not clawed Dominic Adiyah’s header off the line in the last minute of extra time in the World Cup quarterfinal in South Africa in 2010? What if he had watched the ball sail over his right shoulder? What if he had misjudged it and the ball had gone in anyway? What if Asamoah Gyan had scored the subsequent penalty? Ghana would have become the first African side to reach the semifinals of the World Cup and wouldn’t have suffered the sense of loss that has gnawed at it ever since. As it was, the photo was emblazoned on billboards around Accra this week with the slogan “REVENGE! Let’s support the Black Stars.”
Suarez, in an act of magnificent chutzpah, had presented himself unapologetically at the pre-match press conference—appearing alone, not even sharing duties with his coach Diego Alonso. Faced with a furious Ghanaian journalist calling him “the devil himself” (then adding “el diablo” just in case there was any confusion) and saying that many in Ghana wanted to “retire” him, he insisted he had no regrets, pointing out it wasn’t his fault Gyan had missed the subsequent penalty. It was a consummate display from the 35-year-old, rather more assured than his 81 minutes on the pitch in the opening two group games, in which time he had managed a grand total of one shot that was not on target.
