Published on 6/18/2026
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Last update: 05:28 (Mecca time)
The Ghanaian national team achieved a late victory over Panama 1-0 on Thursday in Toronto, Canada, in the first round of the twelfth group competitions of the 2026 World Cup held in North America.
Caleb Jerinki scored the winning goal in the fifth minute of stoppage time, settling a match characterized by intense confrontation between the two teams.
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This is the second victory for an African team in the current edition, after Ivory Coast defeated Ecuador 1-0 in Group Five.
While Portuguese Carlos Queiroz became only the third coach to lead teams in five editions of the World Cup, with the opening whistle of the match against Ghana in its fifth participation.
Clean windows
Ghana kept a clean sheet for the third time in its history at the World Cup, ending a streak of 10 consecutive matches in the tournament without achieving this. Its previous matches in which it kept a clean sheet came in its victories over the Czech Republic in 2006 and Serbia in 2010.
Panama is still without a point in the World Cup (losing 4 out of 4 matches), and has also conceded in each of its four matches in the tournament (12 goals).
Caleb Jerenecke’s goal for Ghana in the 94th minute and 4 seconds is the most late goal scored by Ghana in a World Cup match, excluding extra time.
At the age of 20 years and 153 days, Jerinki became the second youngest player to score for the Black Stars in the tournament, after Draman Hameno, who scored against the United States of America in 2006 at the age of 20 years and 82 days.
The only two goals scored in the 90th minute or later in the 2026 World Cup so far have been 1-0 wins for African teams, with Caleb Yerenky scoring for Ghana against Panama and Amad Diallo scoring for Ivory Coast against Ecuador – these were Africa’s only victories in this tournament so far (2 wins, 4 draws, 4 defeats).
Ayo writes history
Jordan Ayew became the fourth player to represent Ghana in three different editions of the World Cup, joining Asamoah Gyan, Sulley Muntari and his brother Andre Ayew. At the age of 34 years and 185 days, he also surpassed Denis Odoi to become the oldest player to participate with Ghana in the history of the World Cup.
The Ghana-Pama match saw only three shots in the first half, which is the fewest number of shots in the first half of a World Cup match ever (since 1966), and the same number of shots in Argentina vs. Australia (2022), Netherlands vs. Argentina (2014) and Portugal vs. South Korea (2002).
Ghana failed to score a shot in the first half against Panama, becoming the first team not to score a try before half-time in a World Cup match since France in the 2022 final against Argentina.
Panama did not concede a shot until the 48th minute against Ghana, which is a positive number as they had conceded one attempt in the first 10 minutes of each of their previous three World Cup matches.
Panama recorded a possession rate of 62% and 502 successful passes against Ghana, its highest possession rate in the history of its participation in the World Cup, as it had never recorded more than 40% possession or 350 successful passes in any of its previous three matches in the World Cup.
Jose Cordoba set a new record for the number of successful passes by a Panamanian player in a single World Cup match, during the first half alone, as he completed 63 passes, surpassing the previous record of 51, set by Eric Davies in 2018. Cordoba finished the match with 91 completed passes.
