Asamoah Gyan 16^th minute goal was all Ghana rely on to sent hosts, Angola out of the Nations Cup and booked a place in the Semi-finals Sunday night.

The game started on a somber note with tight tackling that made Ghana midfielders became a little bit robust; hence Andre Ayew backed a yellow card in the very first minute of play.

Angola tried to put up a counter in search of an equalizer, but a packed Black Stars midfield showed commanding strength that made the game difficult for them. Such Mbaba got a yellow too on the side of Angola in the 33 minutes when he wanted to checkmate Ghana’s resilient incursions.

When the second half kicked off, both teams became more cautious which make the match drab as Ghana were comfortable protecting their only goal, while checking the attacking forays of the ambitious Angola team.

Centre referee, Benouza Mohamed of Algeria was up for the beat and made sure the game did not degenerate to a brawl. Two more cards were issued in this half to the Black Stars pair of ‘M. Amoah in the 78^th and A. Opoku in the 85^th minute.

On 16 minutes the 50,000 largely partisan crowd fell silent as Udinese’s Kwadwo Asamoah conjured up a neat pass to release Gyan down the right, the Rennes striker racing by Angola skipper Kali to shoot past keeper Carlos Fernandes.

This was the first time in the competition that Angola had fallen behind and only a fine goalline save from Kingson denied them an equaliser on the half hour.

The danger arose when Flavio zipped down the right, crossing for Manucho to head home with the Wigan stopper blocking the ball with his body.

Gyan had a second goal disallowed on 33 minutes when Algerian referee Mohammed Benouza hauled him up for offside.

The Flavio-Manucho show should have produced a goal a minute from the break, but Kingson’s reflex save from close range and Manucho’s poor miscue over the woodwork saved Ghana.

Ghana celebrated the victory having failed to make it to the semi-finals in 1998, 2002, 2004 and 2006, only to bounce back to the last four in 2008 as host in Accra where they lost 0-1 to Cameroun.

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