Match Report: Hearts of Oak 1-0 Wydad Athletic as Isaac Mensah strikes, more about the game Caf Champions League first round first leg
Hearts of Oak beat Wydad Athletic 1-0 in the first leg of Caf Champions League first round at Accra. Isaac Mensah’s first half goal was the separator between the two sides as Wydad escape heavy defeat in their coronavirus plight losing narrowly to impressive Hearts of Oak.
Injuries already weakened Wydad’s team after five stars were missing and in covid-19 test conducted by the Moroccans ahead of trip to Ghana, many more stars were missing due to health conditions including their head coach Walid Regragui.
Hearts of Oak welcomed Wydad Athletic Club to the first leg of Caf Champions League first round at the Accra Sports Stadium. With that much depletion of Wydad’s squad, Hearts were tipped to white-washed their North African opponents but it later turned out the Ghanaian side would need a huge performance to beat Wydad Athletic Club narrowly.
And with the goal not even from a clear chance situation; even though Hearts got some clear cut chances, they weren’t more through out the entire game with Wydad standing firm to a slim defeat.
Wydad made the earliest of incursion after hitting the woodwork within the interval from two corner kicks. In fact Wydad never showed the intend of sitting back even from the right start of proceedings and continued to threaten Hearts of Oak with Zouhair El Moutaradji being played through on goal; the Moroccan International sent in a powerful shot where shot-stopper Richard Atta did well to save it in the box with no Wydad man there to strike from the rebound.
Hearts decided to come forward for attack from the 10’ minute but they find it difficult to penetrate the Wydad midfield let alone their defense. Hearts still managed to keep possession but in their own half way with Salifu Ibrahim drawing back to start attack with Emmanuel Nettey.
There wasn’t a possible question asked that Wydad couldn’t answer. On the just flip of it all however, the Moroccans failed to come forward either having realized how dangerous Hearts would be if they open up spaces for the Ghanaians to operate as they still kept a close game.
At this point, 20’ minutes had been done at the Accra Sports Stadium with Wydad still looked the likest candidate to open the scoring as they were relying on long balls especially through the left side.
And while most of the situations where dealt carefully with by Fatawu Mohammed, a couple were dangerous with one particular instance Richard Atta had to come to save Hearts inside the left of the box.
From the 30’ minute mark, Hearts took absolute control of the game achieving improvement in initial condition now pushing Wydad’ 5-man midfield to the own half which means had their midfield and back line right in front of their own box.
How would or easy Hearts will definitely score from such moment, and while it looked seamlessly unlikely for Wydad too, the Moroccans still heavily relied on counter but Hearts had found the antidote deploying the offside trap which worked to perfection.
The game stopped for the water-break and right after resumption, Kofi Kordzi launched a marvelous attack which nearly put Hearts of Oak in front after 35’ minute but the final ball was cleared from inside the box by Sheikh Kourama. The bulky Hearts forward broke from the final third; played Afriyie Barnieh through on the left side as the Ghana U-20 International slides it back for Kordzi but his calculated effort was distracted with a clearance from Kourama.
At this point, there was clear indication that Hearts will opened the score line after appearing the better side of the two teams with Wydad losing the confidence they started with. Had Hearts finally get the germ to open WAC’s defense? Which appeared Yes in Salifu Ibrahim!
Thanks to Hearts boss Samuel Boadu who has made that tactical switch with Salifu Ibrahim shifted to the left side of attack whiles Kofi Kordzi playing right behind Isaac Mensah. The tactical change saw a general switch from the 4-3-3 formation to 4-2-3-1 system; kudos to Boadu though!; but the very BIG applaud goes to Salifu Ibrahim who had taken upon himself to make sure the system works to perfection.
While playing from the left side of attack, Barnieh took the right side with Kordzi in between as Isaac Mensah led the lone striker. Ibrahim began to run from the left side with decent crosses into the box. That was his main duty; though he complemented with others; and his second attempt on his duty resulted in Hearts taking the lead on the 41’ minute. The first attempt particular to Kordzi practically saw Wydad cleared to a corner for Hearts.
But the second attempted was more accurate with this time intended to find Isaac Mensah instead. The former Eleven Wonders star delivered a nice cross into the box; with amount of extra effort required from Mensah who stretched to find the ball and spontaneously directed it to the bottom left corner as Hearts lead 1-0.
Few minutes later, Wydad nearly leveled after breaking through the Hearts defense but Happy God from inside the 12-yeard shot off the posts.
Hearts just took over from where they left the first half as their first attack went for a goal kick. On the 50’ minute, Ibrahim swung in a corner kick but Mohammed Alhassan’s header went over for a goal kick. Few minutes later, Hearts players protested for a Yahaya Jabrane’s potential red card after hitting Isaac Mensah in the face. However, the referee overlooked the incident as Mensah was stretchered outside.
Hearts were desperately looking to doubled their lead, continued to put the pressure on Wydad as Salifu Ibrahim cross after getting the better of Sheikh inside the box was timely intervene where Kordzi was on alert to score from a header. In just return action, Wydad picked the ball from miscommunication between Fatawu Mohammed and Mohammed Alhassan but Wydad’s effort went wide the right posts.
Wydad came forward again and they were nearly punished in the run of play, after Hearts disposing them right behind Hearts’ box, Fatawu sent a long pass from behind the box straight into Kordzi’s path but the striker’s half volley from the left foot nearly beat but was parried to the corner line by WAC goalkeeper Ahmed Reda Tagnaouti.
Hearts got the best opportunity to double the lead on the 65’ minute after Kordzi beating his marker to 50-50 ball inside the box the forward slide it back to Salifu Ibrahim but shot way over the cross bar.
Wydad decided to come forward but struggled to keep pace with the game already bar’s raised by Hearts of Oak. Samuel Boadu made two changes in his second attempt replacing Ansah Botchway and Isaac Mensah with Salim Adams and Enock Asubonteng. His first substitution had taken Raddy Ovouka who pulled first half injury out for William Denkyi. Denkyi rarely impressed with most of his passes finding opponents instead.
The introduction of Salim Adams increased Hearts dominance in midfield but urgency in front of goal was what was needed to score the second goal. Despite Hearts’ lack of urgency in final third, Wydad defense were brilliant to time the runs of Kofi Kordzi and Afriyie Barnieh keeping the two at bay for the entire game.
Salifu Ibrahim came out for Agyenim Boateng while Victor Aidoo came in for Kordzi who contested Wydad defense in aerial dwells.
Five minutes to full time, Wydad came into the game seeing more of possession but lacked the decisiveness to leveled. In stoppage time (90+4) Wydad scored but the goal was ruled offside. They jammed Hearts’ goal area with their last minute corner that was a dangerous one; cleared as the game ended 1-0 at the Accra Sports Stadium.
Hearts will travel to Morocco next week to face Wydad in the reversed fixture in Casablanca.
