Uruguay beat Ghana 2-0 thanks to two goals from Georgian De Arrascaeta, but it wasn’t enough to advance them to the round of 16.
The midfielder opened the scoring after 26 minutes with a close-range header after Luis Suarez’s saved effort, then added a second six minutes later to double Uruguay’s lead.
In the 19th minute, Ghana was awarded a penalty after Sergio Rochet spilled a Jordan Ayew shot into the path of Mohammed Kudus, who he brought down as Kudus followed up the rebound.
After a quick VAR check to investigate whether Kudus was offside or not, which it was deemed he wasn’t, referee Daniel Siebert was sent to the monitor to check the foul, and decided to award the spot kick.
Andre Ayew stepped up but had his weak effort saved, as Rochet quickly got down to his left to keep the scores level.
Darwin Nunez’s first real involvement in the game was when De Arrascaeta slotted him in behind the Ghana defence, before he chipped Ati-Zigi, only for Southampton’s Mohammed Salisi to rush back and sweep away the ball as it bounced toward the empty net.
Minutes later Uruguay broke the deadlock – with their first goal of the tournament – through De Arrascaeta in his first start in Qatar.
Suarez was inevitably involved in the goal as it was he who weaved his way into the Ghana penalty box and fired a low shot towards Ati-Zigi’s goal, but he could only push it out into the path of De Arrascaeta who headed the rebound into the empty net from close range.
Six minutes later, Suarez was involved again as he set up De Arrascaeta spectacularly for the winger to double Uruguay’s lead with his second goal of the game.
As the match entered the final ten minutes Uruguay thought they had done enough to reach the knockouts, only for South Korea to score a late winner against group winners Portugal to clinch second spot.
The result means Uruguay and Ghana are both eliminated from the World Cup, as Portugal and South Korea progress.
