Milovan Rajevac, the Ghana coach, said his team was being cheered on by the whole world. The Black Stars defeated the United States 2-1 in extra time on Saturday and became only the third African side, after Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002, to advance to the last eight of a World Cup. Ghana enjoyed a large section of home support in the match at Rustenburg as the continent's last representatives at the first African World Cup. Rajevac said that his side's attractive playing style was winning fans from an area much wider than across Africa. "The whole world is watching these games," he said. "This is the World Cup we are talking about. Everybody loves good football and I think because of that Ghana has the support of the whole world and not only the African continent."
So far, the World Cup is on target to be the fourth consecutive tournament to be free of doping, according to Fifa. More than 450 players have been screened during the World Cup, including almost 200 match-day checks. Jiri Dvorak, Fifa's chief medical officer, said yesterday that no positive results had been received, meaning it is on track to follow in the footsteps of 1998, 2002 and 2006. Diego Maradona, now the coach of Argentina, was one of the last players to be caught doping. He failed a test at the 1994 World Cup.
The president of Ghana led his nation's football squad in prayers shortly before their last 16 win against the United States. John Atta Mills spoke to the players in the dressing room, giving them a pep talk before they prayed together, Fred Pappoe, the Ghana Football Association vice-president, told Reuters. "It made a lot of difference to the boys," Pappoe said. "We always pray, before a game, in the bus, in the hotel and also on the pitch before each half and afterwards, no matter what the result."
Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers guard, is on his first trip to Africa, taking in some World Cup games and visiting with scores of young football players at a new training centre in the township of Soweto. Bryant grew up playing football - as well as basketball - as a boy in Italy, and has been following the World Cup in South Africa. He saw the United States lose to Ghana on Saturday, but praised the Americans for giving a huge boost to football's popularity back home. Now he wants to see Brazil play - he likes the way they weave their individual talents into deft teamwork.
Harry Kewell, the Australia forward, has claimed Fifa are allowing players from bigger nations to get away with infringements on the pitch that players from smaller countries get punished for. Kewell, who was sent off for a handball on the goal line in the Socceroos' 1-1 draw with Ghana, said other teams were getting away with far worse at the tournament in South Africa. "What are Fifa doing about it when teams like us are getting hammered and the bigger teams don't?" Kewell said. "We've been told to play the game fair and I think we do. Nothing against the bigger teams but they're allowed to do it because of who and what they are."
Police in Senegal say 11 people died after the collapse of a terrace on which they had gathered to watch a World Cup match on television. The collapse happened as the people were watching the Saturday match between Uruguay and South Korea. A police official said yesterday that there may still be people trapped in the rubble of the building in Matam, in northern Senegal.
David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, had far bigger concerns than the world economy at the Toronto G-20 summit of world leaders. The pair ducked out of formal talks to watch the second half of the World Cup knockout game between their countries yesterday. But the game between the longtime rivals became steeped in controversy after England's Frank Lampard had a clear goal disallowed, and Germany ran out 4-1 winners.
Ghanaians took to the streets to celebrate their 2-1 World Cup victory over the United States on Saturday. In the town of Keta 300km east of the capital Accra, taxi drivers halved their fares for the night as locals savoured the prospect of a quarter-final game. "Ghana has lifted dampened hearts," Klu Borboley, a 42-year-old farmer, said of a win after extra time that he said "redeemed" Africa's image in the World Cup after early exits from the other nations