As both sides start their FIFA World Cup campaign with a high-stakes clash in Toronto, we look ahead to Wednesday’s Group L game with our Ghana vs Panama prediction and preview.
Ghana vs Panama: The Key Insights
The Opta supercomputer makes Ghana favourites, winning 45.1% of the pre-match simulations. Panama claimed their maiden World Cup win in 28.1% of the supercomputer’s 25,000 pre-match simulations. At the age of 73, Black Stars boss Carlos Queiroz will become just the third head coach to manage at five World Cups.Pitched into a group with two European heavyweights, both Panama and Ghana will be aware that Wednesday’s opening game is essentially a must-win.
Few would fancy either side’s chances against Croatia or England, so failure to take maximum points could prove costly – only two teams are guaranteed to go through.
Despite their failure to even make the last Africa Cup of Nations, Ghana qualified for this World Cup by topping their group ahead of Madagascar and Mali, winning eight of 10 matches (D1 L1).
That set up the Black Stars’ fifth appearance – all in the 21st century – and sparked dreams of emulating their best-ever run to the 2010 quarter-finals.
That year, they exited on penalties to a Uruguay team inspired by anti-hero Luis Suárez, but they’ve been eliminated at the first stage in two subsequent participations (2014 and 2022).
Indeed, Ghana have won only one of their last seven matches at the World Cup (D2 L4) and have conceded at least twice in each of the last six.
Now ranked 73rd in the FIFA World Rankings, the West African side have recently lost six of their last seven matches, only stopping the rot with a 1-1 draw in Wales last time out.
Tasked with arresting their decline, Carlos Queiroz was hired to replace Otto Addo in April, just in time to become the third man to manage at five World Cups after Carlos Alberto Parreira (six) and Bora Milutinović (five).
Now in charge of his ninth different nation, he also continues a streak that began with Portugal in 2010 before taking Iran to three successive tournaments.
By contrast, Panama coach Thomas Christiansen is preparing for his World Cup debut, just before the sixth anniversary of his appointment.
Christiansen has already led Los Canaleros to the 2023 Gold Cup final, then the Copa América knockout rounds, before reaching the 2025 CONCACAF Nations League decider.
Now, Panama will feature at FIFA’s top tournament for only the second time to date; they finished bottom of their group in 2018, losing all three games and conceding 11 goals.
Hopes are much higher now.
Benefiting from the absence of World Cup co-hosts Canada, Mexico and the United States, they came through two rounds of qualifying unbeaten (W7 D3). They also recorded the highest number of high turnovers (82) and pressed sequences (138).
Though a product of Barcelona’s youth setup, former Spain striker Christiansen is a pragmatist, and his team is still built around veteran defensive midfielder Antoine Semenyo in full flight, after he racked up 21 Premier League goal involvements last season; however, he’s only scored three times in 34 appearances for the Black Stars.
Instead, the standard bearer remains 34-year-old captain
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