USA line-up: Howard, Bocanegra (c), Bradley, Cherundolo, Dempsey, Donovan, Bornstein, Clark (Edu, 31'), DeMerit, Altidore (Gomez, 91'), Findley (Feilhaber, HT)
Ghana line-up: Kingson, Sarpei (Addy, 73'), Gyan, Pantsil, Mensah (c), Annan, Inkoom (Muntari, 113'), Jonathan, Ayew, Asamoah, Boateng (Appiah, 78')
USA crash out with a poor performance against Ghana, Ghana keep flying the flag for Africa as they set up a quarter final tie against Uruguay. But it did need extra time to sort the winner out of this close match which Ghana deserved to win. Ghana set their stall out in the first five minutes as did USA with Clark making a mistake and giving the ball away to the lively Kevin Prince-Boateng who fired the past Howard into the corner to give Ghana the lead. This remained the story of the first half as USA just couldn't keep hold of the ball nor threaten the Ghanaian defence. The only notable attack USA had came from Sunderland's John Mensah's mistake as he lost out to Fulham's Clint Dempsey, who played Findley into a one-on-one situation where he should have scored but Kingson's big left foot kept Ghana ahead.
Bob Bradley has already shown he is quick to change things when they aren't going right and brought Benny Feilhaber into the fray at half-time, this was his second sub as Clark was replaced by Edu in the first half because he just couldn't adapt to the game. USA played a lot better in the second half and were arguably the better team as they searched for an equaliser. Donovan yet again was pulling the strings and linked nicely with Altidore who fed Feilhaber into a similar one-on-one situation to Findley's and the same outcome occurred with Kingson pulling off another vital save. USA were to achieve their deserved equaliser when Dempsey surged into the box only to be brought down by Mensah for a stone wall penalty. USA's talisman Landon Donovan stepped up and guided his kick just off the post and into the back of the net. From here USA began to dominate a little bit and Kingson had to pull off more vital saves to keep Ghana level both Altidore and Bradley failed to beat the Wigan Athletic keeper.
This led to extra time and again Ghana became the better team as USA failed to regain their momentum. Within three minutes of the extra time Ghana were ahead again thanks to Asamoah Gyan who scored his third goal in tournament, his first from open play. USA began to look a tired and weary team and started to play the long ball into the Ghana penalty area but it was the African Black Stars who were going through to the quarter finals.
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