BITTER END FOR URUGUAY

Ghana get their wish as Suarez and Co bow out

LUIS SUAREZ had been told before the game: ‘Ghana are looking forward to retiring you.’ It didn’t precisely work out that way, but some will still feel a huge sense of vindication after he was left sitting in a dugout here, head in hands, weeping with frustration as his World Cup ended.

This was sweet justice. Ghana defender Daniel Amartey revealed that, when a 91st-minute South Korea winner had put Uruguay third in the group, his team-mates resolved to prevent Uruguay scoring at all cost and ensure their exit.

‘I told my team-mates that we have to defend for ourselves, so that if we can’t go (through), they don’t go (through),’ said Amartey.

Was this an act of revenge for the events of 2010? ‘For me, yes,’ he replied.

There had been a cold dose of reality when Ghana were awarded — and proceeded to miss — a penalty which might have compensated for the one they blew, after Suarez’s deliberate handball ended their World Cup 12 years ago.

But that was long before Hwang Hee-chan struck for the Koreans against Portugal, to dismantle Suarez’s hopes that this might be his last great stand. Not really the outcome that Ghana, with huge ambition of their own, had hoped for. But it was something.

There’s not been a day since then that Ghanaians have not contemplated how it would be to receive another penalty kick, to compensate for the one Asamoah Gyan missed when Suarez handled on the line and eliminated them from the first World Cup on their own continent.

But Andre Ayew managed to make the most desperate job possible of dispatching it yesterday — shuffling up to the ball and finding minimal power to gift Sergio Rochet the most comfortable save imaginable.

In the aftermath, we saw plenty which explains why very few will shed tears for Uruguay today.

Their midfielder Federico Valverde, following up on the kick, placed his face in front of the referee’s and gestured his glee at the miss. Darwin Nunez was booked for appearing to stamp on the penalty spot before Ayew’s kick. The Uruguayan mentality, some call it. Ridiculous behaviour, most would say.

There was more of it from their players at the end, surrounding the officials, seemingly to protest a penalty denied them for a perceived foul on substitute Edinson Cavani. The referee decided that hurrying away was advisable. The players pursued him down the tunnel.

Uruguay manager Diego Alonso was asked by a journalist to explain this conduct at his postmatch press conference. He said his translation earpiece wasn’t working. So didn’t answer.

Uruguay certainly do seem to be leaving this place with the same bitterness that Ghana felt in South Africa. Alonso blamed his team’s exit on Portugal’s dubious penalty against his own team.

Suarez felt it most. He was not quite the ageing old beast many had expected and his heart clearly still beat for this last adventure.

He was the same attack dog Ghana had always remembered — remonstrating, face to face, with the referee after the penalty was given. He bought cheap tackles. He expressed his views emphatically when booked for dissent.

Within minutes of Ghana’s penalty, Suarez was contributing substantially to the first of the goals which made this a comfortable win for Uruguay. Ghana’s defensive calamities helped him dispatch a shot which was spilled out to Giorgian de Arrascaeta, who dropped to head the ball in.

Uruguay’s second was superb — Arrascaeta dispatching a volley of great technical difficulty after Suarez had lifted the ball over the defence.

Ajax’s Mohammed Kudus was a class apart for Ghana — driving around Facundo Pellistri and driving wide of the post in the second half.

It took resilience to stop Uruguay scoring again. Mohammed Salisu raced back to hook a ball from the goal-line after Nunez broke clear and chipped the ball over the advancing Lawrence Ati-Zigi.

In a desperate finale as the South Americans chased the goal that would put them through to the last 16, Valverde’s effort was palmed away by Ati-Zigi, who also made a stunning stop to keep out Cavani’s header. When it was over, Suarez covered his head with his jersey and his body heaved with his sobbing. He walked past the media a little later, nursing a deep sense of victimhood on numerous levels.

‘I see a penalty for Edi (Cavani) because (Alidu Seidu) cuts off his path,’ he said, also complaining bitterly about one of his children not being allowed on the Uruguay bench at the end.

‘My son leaves with the image of the sadness,’ he said, his face red with emotion. Millions of Ghanaians know how he feels.

GHANA (4-2-3-1): Zigi 6; Alidu 5, Amartey 6, Salisu 7, Rahman 6; Thomas 6, A Samed (Kyereh 72); Kudus 8, A Ayew 5 (Bukari 46), J Ayew 5 (Sulemana 46); Williams 6 (Semenyo, 72). Booked: Sulemana, Seidu. URUGUAY (4-4-2): Rochet 7; Varela 6, Giménez 6, Coates 7, Olivera 6; Pellistri 7 (De la Cruz 65), Bentancur 5 (Vecino 35), Valverde 3, De Arrascaeta 8; Núñez 5, Suárez 5 (Cavani 65). Booked: Nunez, Suarez, Coates, Cavani, Gimenez. Man of the match: Mohammed Kudus. Referee: Daniel Siebert (Germany). Attendance: 43,443.