Lamptey's 'bittersweet' World Cup debut

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Ghana were on the end of a narrow 3-2 defeat to Portugal on Thursday.

Adam Tighe

2022-11-25T09:00:00Z

Tariq Lamptey made his World Cup debut for Ghana in Thursday's defeat to Portugal.

Tariq Lamptey had conflicted emotions after his first appearance at a World Cup ended in defeat.

The Black Stars almost grabbed a dramatic point in stoppage time when Inaki Williams dispossessed Portugal goalkeeper Diogo Costa, but the Ghana forward agonisingly slipped before he could apply the finish.

“It’s a bittersweet moment, the most important thing for me was to come out of it with a win and a positive result and that didn’t happen. I am proud and thank God for giving me the opportunity to make my World Cup debut, but I wanted to win.

“We got back into the game; we were in a positive spell, and we were unlucky at that time.

“On another day we definitely get another result. But we have to dust ourselves down, work hard in training and work towards the next game. We always believed in ourselves and that we could get a good result. We just need to build on this confidence.

“We just have to take each game as it comes, we can’t look at anyone else’s results, we just have to make sure we do our business.”

Tariq came on with 20 minutes to play with Ghana trailing 1-0 after Cristiano Ronaldo made history to become the first man to score at five FIFA World Cups.

Andre Ayew temporarily restored parity but two goals in as many minutes for Fernando Santos’s Portugal proved to be decisive despite the late Ghana rally.