Muntari gives Ghana 1-0 halftime lead

Midfielder Sulley Muntari gave Ghana a 1-0 lead over Uruguay at halftime in their World Cup quarter-final at Soccer City here on Friday.

The Inter Milan attacker Muntari let fly with a long-range effort two minutes into stoppage which beat the diving Fernando Muslera to send the African crowd alight.

Uruguay had the best of the early chances, but the Ghanaians got more into it as the half wore on.

Luis Suarez shot straight at goalkeeper Richard Kingson and Diego Forlan forcing Kingson to punch clear his long-range free kick early on.

Kingson was called on again to make a point-blank save off his own defender John Mensah’s header before defender Jorge Fucile was booked for a lunging tackle on Kwadwo Asamoah, ruling him out of the semi-final if Uruguay progressed.

Suarez again tested Kingson forcing the goalkeeper to finger-tip his stinging drive over the bar midway through the opening half.

Ghana finally made the Uruguayan defence work harder minutes later when centre-half Isaac Vorsha’s header off a Muntari corner flew justy wide and then topscorer Asamoah Gyan sidefooted just past the post.

Just before halftime Uruguay lost their skipper and key defender Diego Lugano with an injured right knee and he was replaced by Andres Scotti.

Ghana are bidding to become the first African nation to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup, while it is 40 years since the two-time champions Uruguay last made it to the last four.