{"id":8894,"date":"2023-11-18T07:23:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-18T01:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/2023\/11\/18\/inaki-williams-gives-ghana-winning-start-to-world-cup-qualifying-zambia-and-libya-also-win\/"},"modified":"2023-11-18T07:23:47","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T01:53:47","slug":"inaki-williams-gives-ghana-winning-start-to-world-cup-qualifying-zambia-and-libya-also-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/2023\/11\/18\/inaki-williams-gives-ghana-winning-start-to-world-cup-qualifying-zambia-and-libya-also-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Inaki Williams gives Ghana winning start to World Cup qualifying; Zambia and Libya also win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inaki Williams gave Ghana a winning start to World Cup qualifying by scoring deep into injury time Friday to secure a 1-0 victory over Madagascar.<\/p>\n

Ghana has qualified for four of the last five World Cups, only missing out in Russia in 2018, and reached the quarterfinals in South Africa in 2010.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: Euro 2024 Qualifiers: Italy on brink of qualification; Denmark, Albania advance<\/a><\/p>\n

The Black Stars were a big favorite at home against Madagascar but manager Chris Hughton\u2019s team struggled to breach the visitors\u2019 organized defense in Kumasi.<\/p>\n

Williams finally broke the deadlock with a powerful header after the Spain-born Athletic Bilbao forward had an earlier goal disallowed for offside.<\/p>\n

The two teams observed a moment of silence in memory of former Ghana and Levante striker Raphael Dwamena, who collapsed and died on the field last Saturday during an Albanian league game.<\/p>\n

Also Friday, Leicester forward Patson Daka scored twice as Zambia defeated Republic of Congo 4-2 at home. Lameck Banda and Fashion Sakala got the other goals for the host in Ndola. Silv\u00e8re Ganvoula M\u2019Boussy and Mons Bassouamina scored for the Congolese.<\/p>\n

Malawi snatched a 1-0 win away to Liberia in Monrovia through a 78th-minute goal by teenager Chifundo Mphasi.<\/p>\n

Libya won 1-0 away against Eswatini in a match played in South Africa, Comoros beat Central African Republic 4-2 at home and Guinea edged Uganda 2-1 in Morocco.<\/p>\n

Nine teams from Africa will qualify directly for the 48-team 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada. A 10th team could make the field through the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\n

\nComments\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine teams from Africa will qualify directly for the 48-team 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada. A 10th team could make the field through the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-sport-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}