For well over 83 minutes, a 10-man Black Satellites team held themselves tight against their Brazilian counterparts in a final match many tipped the Brazilians to win hands down.

However, this was not to be as the Brazilians found the Satellites a hard nut to crack. Aided by the Belgian Referee Frank De Bleekere to the visible disadvantage of the Ghanaians, the Brazilians failed to turn their numerical superiority to advantage as they failed to find the net.

If there was any decision by the referee which angered Ghanaians the most, then it was the 37th minute red card given to Daniel Addo, which obviously weakened the team.

The Satellites protested that both Jonathan Mensah and David Addy were behind Addo and, therefore, the straight red card to Addo for a foul on Alex Teixeira was improper and a bad decision but the Belgian referee thought otherwise.

From then on, Ghanaians were on tenterhooks watching their darling Black Satellites against the dreaded Brazilians.

The numerous fans who poured onto the streets of Kumasi didn’t care about the handing over of the trophy to the skipper of the Black Satellites, Andre Dede Ayew, for it was a done deal.

For them, winning the FIFA U-20 World Cup, by defeating the Brazilians in a 'death' penalty shoot-out after the two teams failed to break the deadlock in the 120 minutes of the game was enough. The celebrations went deep into the night.

It must be stated that it was curses upon curses all over against referee De Bleekere of Belgium.

The African and the South American champions, who had not lost a game during the competition, kept that proud record intact, but ultimately, it was the Black Satellites who followed in the footsteps of Argentina, victors at Canada 2007, in lifting the famous trophy.

There was no doubt who the 67,814 in the stadium were supporting, as there was a tremendous roar from the home fans whenever their fellow Africans crossed the halfway line, and the noise level increased further when Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu's deflected shot forced Rafael to make a fine, low save to his right.

As the half wore on, the Black Satellites seemed to increasingly get into their rhythm of playing with 10 men and their attacking forays became more and more regular, while at the back, they defended with tremendous spirit.

They earned the right to take the tie into extra time, but there was still drama to come in the latter stages of the 90th minute, when Andre Ayew and Rafael Toloi clashed for the ball, the latter requiring treatment.

With Rogerio having made all three of his substitutions, there was a distinct possibility that Brazil would have been forced to play extra time with 10 men. Yet despite running with a noticeable limp, the defender continued heroically to maintain the numerical advantage for his team.

The South Americans had a glorious chance to take the lead six minutes into the extra time, but Agyei pulled off a world-class save to deny Maicon, who had his hands cupped to his mouth in disbelief for a full minute afterwards.

Agyei’s heroic saves continued as he frustrated Wellington Junior in the second period of extra time with a smart stop at his near post, but with some players having played 11-and-a-half hours during this competition, the pace of the game decreased - and the game limped into a penalty shoot-out.

That was when the fireworks began. First, Alan Kardec, Ayew, Giuliano and Inkoom traded successful penalties, but Brazil got the first advantage after seeing Douglas Costa scoring and Jonathan Mensah miss.

Souza (17) then saw his penalty saved, but Bright Addae (19) failed to reduce the deficit when his strike from 12 yards was comfortably claimed by Rafael.

That left Maicon (19) with the chance of winning it for Brazil, but he blasted the chance high over the bar. Adiyiah kept his cool to take the shoot-out into sudden death. Then Agyei denied Alex Teixeira (7) before Agyemang-Badu made the victory certain. Share Your Thoughts on this article Name Email Location Comments Graphic Ghana may edit your comments and not all comments will be published Source: Daily Graphic - Daily Graphic