World Cup 2010: Gyan's Grief, Ghana Gone

Asamoah Gyan has been one of the stars of the World Cup so far, scoring three goals in Ghana's march to the quarter-finals, but sadly for him, their defeat to Uruguay on penalties will probably haunt him for some time to come. It felt fitting that the star of the dramatic second round extra-time victory over the USA was given the chance to repeat the feat by stepping up to take a penalty with the last kick of the game before a shoot-out, his third penalty of the tournament.


Gyan was distraught after Ghana's elimination

Both sides had had their chances throughout the 120 minutes of regular and extra time, and either could have rightfully claimed victory at any time. But when in the 120th minute, Luis Suarez cleared the ball off the Uruguayan line with his hand, Gyan had the chance to take Ghana into uncharted territory: a first semi-final not only for his country, but for any Africa team.
His resulting miss took the match into a shoot-out that Ghana would lose, but the most impressive sight in the entire game, even more so than two wonderful goals, and the high drama of the shoot-out, was Gyan stepping up to take his country's first penalty, just minutes after his previous attempt had crashed into the crossbar. That took a lot of courage, but his confident finish took even more.


Fernando Muslera celebrates Gyan's miss, to the Ghanaian's horror

Gyan plays for Rennes in France, and one must assume that a bigger club somewhere in Europe will make them an offer they cannot refuse. Whether he goes onto bigger things, or never quite lives up to his World Cup performances (like El Hadji Diouf), only time will tell, but his skill, physical prowess and mental toughness will have been noted by many.

Meanwhile, Uruguay live to fight another day. They have been one of the most impressive teams in the competition thus far, and Uruguayan football as a whole is a remarkable story. The relative success of the Slovenian team, despite a population of only two million is marvelled at, but Uruguay have held a fairly regular position at the top table of world football since the international game first took off in the early twentieth century, despite a population of only three million. Whilst they have not been a major World Cup power since their last semi-final in 1970, they have played some of the best football seen this time around (a grim opening match against France aside), and deserve more attention than they have been getting, while Diego Forlan has been possibly the best striker at the competition.

Forlan never seems to get enough credit in England, where memories of his ineffective spell at Manchester United prevail. Nonetheless, he has scored goals consistently throughout the rest of his career, and at two World Cups has looked like a world class forward. What is interesting is that he has mastered the Jabulani ball better than anyone else in the competition, as evidenced by the quality of his set pieces.


Forlan equalises with a trademark set-piece

The sheen is somewhat taken off Uruguay's World Cup after Suarez's handball. It was instinctive, but ultimately cheated Ghana out of a winning goal. Yes, Gyan should have scored, and Ghana had their chance, but in a week where the talking points have been the gross injustices that befell England and Mexico, despite both sides being second best in their respective games, it seems wrong that Suarez's act of cheating will keep him in the tournament, whilst the excellent Ghanaians go home. He will miss the semi-final, but should Uruguay make the final, he will be back. After all the opprobrium directed at Thierry Henry last year, it would not be right to let this go unnoticed.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs, this World Cup has kept improving since that uninspiring first week. It got going in week two, and the drama has built steadily since then. If tomorrow's quarter-finals are anything as good as today's double bill, then fans will have been spoiled.