Sixteen years ago Ghana came within a handball of a World Cup semi-final. Luis Suarez punched the ball off the line in the last minute of extra time against Uruguay, got sent off, and celebrated on the touchline when Asamoah Gyan hit the bar from the resulting penalty. Ghana went out on penalties. Suarez has never properly apologised. Ghana supporters have not forgotten.
That is where to start with Ghana because it tells you more about the character of this football programme than any ranking does. They are 72nd in the world. They reached the quarter-final in 2006 and 2010. The ranking does not reconcile with the history and the history is more useful heading into June 23 in Boston.
KUDUS
He is at Tottenham now. He scored the goal that confirmed Ghana were going to North America, not a comfortable tap-in, the goal when it was needed. You probably watched him for two seasons at West Ham and know roughly what he does, which is appear in spaces he was not supposed to be in and do things with the ball that the defender who should have been marking him is still thinking about.
The specific thing about Kudus that England need to plan for is not his pace or his technique, both of which are fine. It is that he does not stay where he starts. He starts wide and ends up somewhere between the lines and the space he finds tends to be space that nobody was explicitly told to cover because he was not supposed to be there. By the time the left-back has realised he has drifted inside and told the centre-back and the centre-back has stepped out, the ball has already been played.
At West Ham he did this to Premier League defences every other week. He has moved to a bigger club and the thing that made him difficult has not been coached out of him.
England’s left-back in Boston has ninety minutes of tracking a player who will be somewhere different every time they look up.
SEMENYO AND THE OTHER SIDE
Antoine Semenyo from Bournemouth is more straightforward. He goes down the line. He is quick and physical and if the right-back gets caught high up the pitch Semenyo is going to the byline before anyone can stop him.
He is not unpredictable in the way Kudus is unpredictable. You know what he is going to try. He does it anyway because he is quick enough and strong enough that knowing what is coming does not always help.
Partey is in the Ghana midfield at 32 having spent years at Arsenal and knowing Premier League football inside out. Hughton will use him to sit in the space Bellingham wants and make life difficult. Partey receiving cleanly in Ghana’s own half is when the transitions happen quickly with Kudus and Semenyo already moving.
HUGHTON
He managed Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Brighton. He knows how English clubs press, how they build from the back, how Tuchel’s system works because he has been around this version of English football for decades. Ghana are not arriving in Boston having never seen anything like England before.
Jordan Ayew is at Nottingham Forest. Seidu is at Manchester City. Paintsil at Leicester. Amartey at Leicester. Several of the outfield players Hughton is selecting have spent this season in the Premier League. He has built a squad of players who understand the environment they are walking into.
Ghana will be compact and organised and Hughton will have a specific plan for Rice and for Bellingham. It will not be complicated. Sit deep, defend the central lanes, give England the wide areas, and wait for the moments Kudus and Semenyo can run into.
BOSTON
Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. Forty minutes south of the city. New England Patriots play there. June 23, nine o’clock at night, BBC One.
The game after Croatia. If Dallas goes well this is the one that confirms qualification. If Dallas does not go well this is the one where the pressure lands. Either way Kudus is going to drift inside in the first twenty minutes and England’s left-back is going to make a decision about whether to follow him or stay and the wrong decision costs a goal.
Ghana’s ranking is 72nd. Their last two World Cups ended in the group stage. Their last memorable World Cup moment was sixteen years ago and involved someone else’s handball.
None of that means Boston is comfortable. Semenyo will run at whoever England start at right-back for ninety minutes. Partey will crowd Bellingham out of the game if Rice does not sit on him. Kudus will turn up somewhere he was not supposed to be.
England will have more of the ball and more of the chances and should win the game. Hughton has spent weeks working out how to make should feel very uncertain at nine o’clock in Massachusetts.
For everything else you need around England’s group: the Group L guide with all six fixtures and TV times covers all four teams and how qualification works, the Croatia preview goes deep on the June 17 opener, and if you need to know how to watch every England game free in the UK the streaming guide has it. The complete England tournament guide covers everything from the squad to what happens after June 27.