Ghana secured a 1-0 victory in their opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup after Caleb Yirenkyi scored a dramatic stoppage-time winner in the 95th minute from a Brandon Thomas-Asante assist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reflecting on the performance after the match, Queiroz said the players demonstrated the commitment required to succeed at football\u2019s biggest stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe players fought like warriors. To win at this level, you must sacrifice. A win at this World Cup is very expensive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Portuguese coach added that the team showed character and composure when it mattered most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe battled like warriors and came back and won with brains,\u201d Queiroz stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Ghana forward Antoine Semenyo has insisted the Black Stars will not allow their opening World Cup victory to breed complacency as they prepare for a crucial Group L encounter against England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The victory over Panama leaves Ghana well positioned in the group, but Semenyo says the squad remains fully focused on the challenges ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
England also began their World Cup campaign with a victory, defeating Croatia 4-2 to set up a potentially decisive clash with Ghana on June 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking after the win over Panama, Semenyo stressed that the team would remain grounded despite the positive start to the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s going to be a tough game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe feel like we\u2019re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We know we want to win that game. But we know it\u2019s not going to be easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo we have to make sure we recover well and make sure we train well leading up to that weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Black Stars will now turn their attention to the highly anticipated showdown against England in Boston before concluding their Group L campaign against Croatia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ghana secured a 1-0 victory in their opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup after Caleb Yirenkyi scored a dramatic stoppage-time winner in the 95th minute from a Brandon Thomas-Asante assist. Reflecting on the performance after the match, Queiroz said the players demonstrated the commitment required to succeed at football\u2019s biggest stage. \u201cThe players […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":39369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6409,3295],"tags":[12974,6573,5483,10387,8908,8678,1258,746,5500,5247,192,5475,8126,6045,13256,13284,4224,9616,10885,12790,36,5248,7208],"class_list":["post-49808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-world-sport","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-black","tag-boston","tag-campaign","tag-coach","tag-croatia","tag-england","tag-feel","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-ghana","tag-black-stars","tag-match","tag-panama","tag-players","tag-queiroz","tag-sacrifice","tag-train","tag-victory","tag-weekend","tag-world","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2026"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49809,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49808\/revisions\/49809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}