The Black Princesses appeared on course to suffer another group stage elimination at the 2024 U20 Women’s World Cup after a 4-1 thrashing by Japan in their second group fixture on Thursday.
Ghana who came into the tournament expecting a great outing after been knocked 2-1 by a debutant team from Austria were determined to beat Japan in the group E qualifier. However, after dominating the first half it would be Japan who draw first blood and this was scored by Chinari Sasai just before half time. Manaka Matsukubo then doubled Japan’s lead moments later, taking the score from 1-0 to 2-0 in favour of the 2018 champions, at the break.
Japan came back to the second half boosted of confidence and their pressure paid off when they scored their third goal in the fiftieth minute. Ghana, however, was able to bag a consolation goal in the later part of the match after series of attacks on the Kenyan defense line, before their captain Stella Nyamekye scored a penalty in the 83rd minute.
But the hope was short lived when Miyu Matsunaga makes Japan’s fourth goal towards the dying embers of the match and thus booking their place in the next round of the tournament.
This situation means that with two successive defeats the Black Princesses stand little chance of progressing to the knockout stage. The team has only been able to qualify for the group stage in six attempts during the World Cup, have a crunch match against New Zealand on Monday, September 9, 2024 to fight it out for third place in the group so as to keep their pale attempt at reaching the knockout stages alive.
In the other match in the Group E the Austrian team built on their success and triumphed over New Zealand to make it two wins out of two and a place in the next round.
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