19.11.03 Ghana 2-0 Somalia in Kumasi, Ghana
GHA: 27 Stephen Appiah, 90 Lawrence Adjei

Kumasi, Nov 20, GNA - Ghana beat Somalia 2-0 in the second leg World Cup qualifying match played in Kumasi on Wednesday.

Ghana, who on Sunday beat the visitors 5-0 have thus qualified for the group stage of the competition on a 7-0 aggregate.

Ghana, fielding almost local players, took the lead in the 27th minute through skipper Stephen Appiah in a goalmouth action.

Somalia who packed the defence was not deterred and counter attack but Ghanaian defence spearheaded by John Mensah warded off the attempts.

In the 15th minute, Isaac Boakye collided with Somali goalkeeper Abdulkadir Shek Osman who got injured in the process.

This infuriated Musda Hassan Omar who rushed on Isaac Boakye thereby attracting the yellow card from referee I. Chaibou who also showed Boakye the yellow card.

In one of their counter attacks, Musdaf Hassan Omar sent goalkeeper George Owu stretching to his elastic limit to punch a goal bound shot in the 29th minute injuring himself in the process and had to be treated.

Ghana had a good chance to increase the tally in the 39th minute but Nana Arhin Duah shot wide a perfect cross from Don Bortey to end the half.

On resumption, Sammy Adjei replaced goalkeeper Owu as Ghana continued to probe for more goals but Isaac Boakye headed away a cross from Don Bortey in the 51st minute.

From then on Ghana pinned the Somalians to their own half forcing goalkeeper Osman to work extra hard to keep down the score line as Ghana shot from all angles.

Disaster nearly struck Ghana when in the 59th minute Don Bortey was shown the red card for a violent attack on Abdulahi Abdi Farah.

Ghana brought in Asamoah Gyan for Boakye in 62nd minute as Lawrence Adjei missed a glaring chance a minute later while Arhin Duah was shown the yellow card in the 72nd minute and was replaced by Kwadwo Poku two minutes later.

As the game was heading for a thin win for Ghana, Lawrence Adjei sent the stadium jubilating with a classic second goal during injury time to consolidate Ghana's win.

Both legs of the Ghana-Somalia preliminary qualifier were played in the west African country as a result of the political instability in Somalia.

The Black Stars now join twenty-nine other African countries in the group qualifying stages of the 2006 Nations Cup and World Cup.

The 30 nations will contest five groups of six in a round-robin series which will get underway in the middle of next year.

Line-up: Owu/Adjei, Aziz Ansah, Pappoe, Hamza Mohammed, John Mensah, Yakubu Abubakari Lawrence Adjei, Appiah (Capt.), Isaac Boakye/Asomah Gyan, Arhin-Duah/Kojo Poku, Don Bortey