Ghana are in the quarter-finals of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and Mali are not. Both finished on four points.
The head-to-head did not separate them either. Overall goal difference did — the advantage Ghana carried into the final round.
Mali needed to win. They had ten shots and not one of them came from inside the box.
The goal came from the two changes to the side
Ghana made two changes to their starting eleven for this match. In came Evelyn Badu and Comfort Yeboah, neither of whom had started in the tournament.
In first-half stoppage time, Yeboah supplied the pass and Badu headed it in.
It was the only goal Ghana took from eleven attempts in forty-eight minutes.
Badu scored again on 70 minutes and had it ruled out for offside. It is the second goal disallowed against her for the same reason in four days: on 2 August her 79th-minute equaliser against Cameroon was chalked off.
Mali lost their goalkeeper on 22 minutes, and they owe their point to a goalkeeper
Fatoumata Karentao, the captain and a starter in all three matches, went off injured on 22 minutes. She had already made three saves.
She was replaced by Aïssatou Liberge, who is twenty and had not started a match in the tournament.
Liberge made five more saves and prevented 0.75 goals.
Between them they made eight stops and prevented 0.85 goals. Cynthia Konlan, in the Ghana goal, made two.
Four minutes
Mali made two changes at half-time. One of them, Kadidiatou Diabaté, who is eighteen, equalised on 50 minutes.
She had been on the pitch for four.
It was one of only three shots Mali put on target in the whole match.
Seventeen shots to ten, and none of Mali’s inside the box
Ghana generated 1.60 expected goals. Mali, 0.38.
The gap was not in the number of attempts — seventeen to ten — but in where they were taken. Ghana shot eleven times from inside the area. Mali did not manage one: all ten of their efforts came from outside it.
Ghana had three big chances. Mali had none.
The Black Queens controlled the ball: 67% possession, 281 completed passes to 101, and 1.17 expected assists to 0.26.
Mali made thirty-six clearances and picked up all three of the match’s yellow cards. Ghana were not booked once.
What comes next
Ghana play their quarter-final against Malawi on Sunday, at 21:00 local time, at the Al Madina Stadium in Rabat. Winning it means qualifying for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.
It is the second edition running that the Black Queens have come through the group stage.
Mali leave with four points and a goal difference of zero, having scored in all three of their matches.
Mali 1-1 Ghana
Thursday 6 August · Moulay Rachid Stadium, Casablanca
0-1 Badu (45+3’), 1-1 Diabaté (50’)
