{"id":11204,"date":"2025-05-29T09:11:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T09:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=11204"},"modified":"2025-05-29T09:11:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T09:11:54","slug":"2025-unity-cup-black-stars-to-settle-for-third-place-playoff-after-defeat-to-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=11204","title":{"rendered":"2025 Unity Cup: Black Stars to settle for third-place playoff after defeat to Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Black Stars failed to book a place in the final of the 2025 Unity Cup following their narrow defeat to Nigeria on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n<p>Cyriel Dessers opener and Razak Simpson&#8217;s own goal took the game away from Ghana before Brandon Thomas-Asante came off the bench to score a consolation for Otto Addo&#8217;s side.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria enjoyed a blistering start to the game after the Rangers forward scored after just 14 minutes, capitalising on a slip by Simpson in an attempt to clear a cross.<\/p>\n<p>The Nations FC defender&#8217;s nightmare show continued after a header deflected off him before beating goalkeeper Benjamin Asare to double the lead for the Super Eagles.<\/p>\n<p>Ghana was forced into a first half substitution after Aaron Essel, making his debut, picked up an injury and was replaced by Ebenezer Annan.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria went into the break with a commanding two-goal lead.<\/p>\n<p>Addo make two changes at halftime with Caleb Yirenkyi and Thomas-Asante being thrown into the game.<\/p>\n<p>Ghana grew into the game and created chances but had to wait until the 70th minute when a well-worked ball down the left saw Annan set up Thomas-Asante for the Black Stars&#8217; goal.<\/p>\n<p>Debutant Christopher Bonsu Baah almost registered an assist but Jordan Ayew failed to connect with the Genk winger&#8217;s cross.<\/p>\n<p>Nordsjaelland&#8217;s Yirenkyi and Abu Francis also came close to drawing Ghana levelled late in the game but their efforts failed to hit the net.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of 90 minutes, it was victory for Nigeria who now have back-to-back wins over Ghana in their last two meetings at senior level.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday nitght&#8217;s result means Nigeria will play Jamaica in the final on Saturday, May 31, while Ghana face Trinidad and Tobago in the third-place playoff game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Black Stars failed to book a place in the final of the 2025 Unity Cup following their narrow defeat to Nigeria on Wednesday evening. Cyriel Dessers opener and Razak Simpson&#8217;s own goal took the game away from Ghana before Brandon Thomas-Asante came off the bench to score a consolation for Otto Addo&#8217;s side. Nigeria [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":11205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3507,11],"tags":[3592,873],"class_list":["post-11204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-sports","tag-025-unity-cup","tag-black-stars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11206,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204\/revisions\/11206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}