Ghana faced off against Portugal on Thursday in Group H in the ongoing FIFA World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n
Despite the spirited play by the Black Stars at the 974 Stadium in Doha, the West African country still suffered a 3-2 defeat to the Portuguese.<\/p>\n
A controversial penalty awarded to Portugal a few minutes after the second half began helped the Europeans break the deadlock after Cristiano Ronaldo found the back of Ghana\u2019s net.<\/p>\n
Ghanaians believed the penalty was not deserved and have, through social media, descended heavily on the game\u2019s American referee, Ismail Elfath.<\/p>\n
Andre Ayew\u2019s 73rd-minute goal cancelled out Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s penalty, but Ghana\u2019s joy was cut short after goals from\u00a0Joao Felix and Rafael Leao put Portugal back in control.<\/p>\n
Osman Bukari headed home a second for the Black Stars, but the Portuguese held on.<\/p>\n
Another controversial moment came in the game\u2019s dying minutes, as Black Stars forward, I\u00f1aki Williams, appeared to be tripped in the box by Portugal\u2019s goalkeeper as he pounced on a loose ball.<\/p>\n
This was also ignored by the officials, including Elfath, who blew the final whistle not long after.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Below are a few things to know about Elfath and his officiating crew:<\/p>\n According to Draftkings Nation, Ismail Elfath is a Moroccan immigrant to the United States and has risen to the top of MLS\u2019 officiating hierarchy.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, he was the referee for the MLS Cup Final, handing out four yellow cards and one red card in LAFC\u2019s win over Philadelphia.<\/p>\n His most notable international experience was at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.<\/p>\n He was the referee for two group-stage matches and the Japan-New Zealand quarterfinal match.<\/p>\n He handed out six yellow cards in the QF, seven in the Spain-Argentina group stage match, and two yellows, one second yellow, and one red in the Brazil-Ivory Coast group stage match.<\/p>\n Elfath has also had an uncomfortable prior encounter with Ghanaian players.<\/p>\n In 2017, he gave red cards to two Ghanaian players, Columbus Crew\u2019s Jonathan Mensah and Lalas Abubakar in the same game, decisions which were heavily criticised by Crew\u2019s manager at the time.<\/p>\n Elfath\u2019s American officiating crew for the Ghana vs Portugal match according to Draftkings Nation included:<\/p>\n Assistant Referee 1: Kyle Atkins (USA) \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ghana faced off against Portugal on Thursday in Group H in the ongoing FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Despite the spirited play by the Black Stars at the 974 Stadium in Doha, the West African country still suffered a 3-2 defeat to the Portuguese. A controversial penalty awarded to Portugal a few minutes after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1257689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1257687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1257687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1257687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1257687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1257687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-1444221807.jpg\")
Assistant Referee 2: Corey Parker (USA)
Fourth Official: St\u00e9phanie Frappart (FRA)
Reserve Assistant Referee: Karen Diaz Medina (MEX)
Video Assistant Referee: Armando Villarreal (USA)
Assistant Video Assistant Referee: Drew Fischer (CAN)
Offside Video Assistant Referee: Alessandro Giallatini (ITA)
Support Video Assistant Referee: Shaun Evans (AUS)
Standby Assistant Video Assistant Referee: Elvis Noupue (CMR)<\/p>\n