In Sports / By GT Admin /

Female U-17 star, Mukarama Abdulai succeeded in raising her goal tally to seven but that was not enough to book qualification for the national female U-17 team, the Black Maidens who bowed out of the ongoing FIFA U-17 World Cup in Uruguay.

In an action-packed quarter final duel yesterday, Mukarama shot the Maidens ahead as they drew 2-2 with South American counterparts, Mexico in a grueling match that was settled on penalty shoot-out.

The Mexicans emerged victors with a convincing 4-2 score line from the spot after scoring all four of their kicks.

For the Ghanaians, it was another nightmare as Elizabeth Oppong and Justice Yeboah wasted their kicks with scorers during regulation time, Mukarama and Sussy Teye converting.

Despite bowing out of the competition, Mukarama will hope no other player breaks her record to collect any of the individual awards after the competition.

Ghana goalkeeper, Grace Boadu will definitely come under the spotlight for bad reasons after conceding a second goal from a free kick with nine minutes of playing time left.

She was not spared the blame by Head Coach of the team, Evans Adotey, who felt victory was handed to the Mexicans with that poor reaction to the free kick taken by the skipper of the side, Nicole Perez.

Before that heart-breaker, both sides had entertained the sparse crowd with end-to-end action that saw the two sides threaten their opponents' goal areas but failed to score.

The Mexicans had more of the ball than the Ghanaians and were able to silence tournament top scorer Mukarama Abdulai for greater part of the half.

Mukarama, however, gained some amount of freedom in the second half; manifesting in the first goal of the match less than three minutes after referee Maria Carvajal whistled them into action.

She ghosted away from her marker the moment Ghana winger Mavis Owusu created space on the right wing and anticipating right, she found herself at the end of that cross; heading beautifully into the Mexican net for the opener.

The Mexican goalie Jaidy Gutierrez dived to save it but to no avail.

The Maidens surrendered the lead after Mexico was awarded a penalty 15 minutes later as Elizabeth Oppong was adjudged to have tripped Mexico substitute Nayeli Diaz in the penalty area.

Nicole Perez converted the resulting spot-kick with perfection.

Suzzy Teye gave Ghana the lead again after beating the Mexican goalkeeper with a curling strike but the South Americans pulled the equalizer again from a free kick that surprisingly beat Ghana goalkeeper, Grace Buoadu to the chargrin of her colleagues.

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