{"id":505931,"date":"2026-06-22T19:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T19:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/505931\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T19:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T19:31:08","slug":"semenyo-and-ghana-aim-to-emulate-2010-world-cup-heroes-as-they-face-england-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/505931\/","title":{"rendered":"Semenyo and Ghana aim to emulate 2010 World Cup heroes as they face England | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antoine Semenyo was only 10 years old when Ghana came within a Luis Su\u00e1rez handball of becoming the first African team ever to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup<\/a>. The Manchester City forward can still vividly recall the emotions that night as he watched with his family in Bexleyheath, south-east London.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember being at my uncle\u2019s house, and we were screaming after the handball<\/a>, thinking we were going through,\u201d he said in an interview last month<\/a>. \u201cWatching Ghana play in the World Cup was so special. Mum, Dad, uncles, aunties, cousins all turn up to one house, and we would watch all the games together, celebrating and screaming. Ghana came in [for me] when I was 19 or 20, so I was never going to turn it down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet while Asamoah Gyan and co certainly made an impression on the young Semenyo \u2013 who will come face-to-face with City teammates Nico O\u2019Reilly and John Stones against England in Massachusetts on Tuesday \u2013 the legacy of the Black Stars\u2019 historic run to the quarter-finals in 2010 in South Africa has largely been disappointment. Ghana\u2019s appearance at the next World Cup in Brazil ended in an early elimination after finishing bottom of their group and they didn\u2019t fare much better in Qatar four years ago, despite beating South Korea. Their failure to reach the African Nations Cup finals last year for the first time since 2004 was a national embarrassment that was only eased by qualifying for a fifth World Cup.<\/p>\n

Gyan \u2013 whose missed penalty in the shootout against Uruguay proved terminal 16 years ago \u2013 saw his record as the youngest Ghanaian to score at a finals eclipsed by the 20-year-old rising star Caleb Yirenkyi in the 1-0 win over Panama<\/a> in Toronto. The 40-year-old former Sunderland striker \u2013 known as Baby Jet \u2013 played his part in the buildup to the victory as he led a traditional pre-match jama session featuring singing and dancing at the team\u2019s hotel in Toronto before the game, while his celebration with the winger Abdul Fatawu in the changing room afterwards went viral. The victory has also rekindled hopes of emulating the class of 2010, who beat Serbia by the same scoreline in South Africa in their opening match thanks to a late penalty from Gyan.<\/p>\n

Luis Su\u00e1rez (right) reaches his hands to the ball during the World Cup quarter-final match between Uruguay and Ghana in Johannesburg in 2010. Photograph: Themba Hadebe\/AP<\/p>\n

\u201cThe momentum we got from the first game was really important,\u201d says Jonathan Mensah, the central defender who came into the team for the draw against Australia in their second match back in 2010. \u201cTo get a point in our second game was crucial because that helped us qualify for the next stage. Now we need another good game against a good English side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mensah was only 19 when he was drafted in by Ghana\u2019s Serbian manager, Milovan Rajevac, but had been part of the team that won the Under-20 World Cup in Egypt a year earlier by beating Brazil on penalties in the final. Several members of that team, including Andr\u00e9 Ayew, Kwadwo Asamoah and Dominic Adiyiah \u2013 whose goalbound header was infamously blocked with both hands by Su\u00e1rez during that epic last-eight match in Johannesburg \u2013 went on to play leading roles in the side that captured the hearts of the continent.<\/p>\n

They were even christened BaGhana BaGhana after the hosts of Africa\u2019s first-ever World Cup were eliminated early and given a rapturous reception by supporters at a special event in Johannesburg the day after they lost to Uruguay that was attended by thousands of people.<\/p>\n

The 2026 team, coached by Carlos Queiroz, who became Ghana\u2019s fifth coach in as many years only a month before the tournament, can sadly not rely on such a rich seam of emerging talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some talented players now but it\u2019s nothing compared to 2010 because we had a little bit of everything in that squad,\u201d says Mensah, who went on to play for clubs in Italy, Spain and Russia before spending several years in MLS.<\/p>\n

Asamoah Gyan became the youngest Ghanaian to score at a World Cup finals in 2010, before he was surpassed by Caleb Yirenkyi on Thursday. Photograph: Matt Dunham\/AP<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the likes of Kevin-Prince Boateng, Kwadwo and Gyan \u2013 who was arguably the hottest we\u2019ve ever seen him. In 2010, he was in his prime and he was killing every game he played in. This squad is fairly young yet still talented. So you just need to allow them to grow into what they could possibly be and not put too much pressure on them.<\/p>\n

I think Ghana can cause England some issues but they will need to roll up their sleeves and fight because we know how hard it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Repeated attempts to persuade Nottingham Forest\u2019s Callum Hudson-Odoi to commit to Ghana failed, while Eddie Nketiah of Crystal Palace has also been on the radar but was unavailable due to injury. Eight of Queiroz\u2019s squad were born outside Ghana compared with only two \u2013 Boateng and Quincy Owusu-Abeyie \u2013 in 2010.<\/p>\n

Semenyo has emerged as the star player only recently in the absence of Tottenham\u2019s Mohammed Kudus due to a serious muscle injury that has kept him out since January. Semenyo has scored only three goals in 35 caps and will be eager to make his mark on the biggest stage of all having been inspired as a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I see a video of 2010, it brings back so many memories,\u201d says Mensah, who was suspended for the Uruguay game after picking up two yellow cards earlier in the .<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have loved to get to the semi-finals and then go for the ultimate prize. But it was a great experience and we learned so much from that. Hopefully these guys will not just emulate what we did by getting to the quarter-finals but also emulate the fighting spirit that we had.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Antoine Semenyo was only 10 years old when Ghana came within a Luis Su\u00e1rez handball of becoming the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-505931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}