The Ghana national football team, popularly known as the Black Stars, is the national association football team of Ghana and is controlled by the Ghana Football Association. Before gaining independence from Great Britain in 1957, the country played as the Gold Coast.

Although the team did not qualify for the senior FIFA World Cup until 2006 they had actually qualified for five straight Olympic Games Football Tournaments when the tournament was still a full senior National Team competition. The team have won the African Cup of Nations four times[7] (in 1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982), making Ghana the second most successful team in the contest's history, behind Egypt.

Ghanaian teams has enjoyed considerable success in FIFA's age-restricted tournaments. The Ghana U17 team, the Black Starlets, have won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup title twice and finished as runner-up twice. The Ghana U20 team, the Black Satellites, have also finished as runner-up at the FIFA Under-20 World Cup twice. The Ghana Olympic Team, the Black Meteors, became the first African Country to win a medal in Football at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

After going through 2005 unbeaten, Ghana won the FIFA World Rankings Most Improved team of the year award and they reached the second round of the 2006 Germany World Cup.

History
The Ghana Amateur Football Association was founded in 1957, soon after the country's independence, and was affiliated to both CAF and FIFA the following year, Englishman George Ainsley being appointed coach of the national team.

In 1960, the Black Stars played Spanish giants Real Madrid, who were at the time Spanish, European and intercontinental champions, and drew 3-3.

Charles Kumi Gyamfi became coach in 1961, and Ghana won successive African Cup of Nations titles, in 1963 and 1965, and achieved their record win, 13-0 away to Kenya, shortly after the second of these. They also reached the final of the tournament in 1968 and 1970, losing 1-0 on each occasion, to DR Congo and Sudan respectively. Their domination of this tournament earned the country the nickname of "the Brazil of Africa" in the 1960s. The team had no success in FIFA World Cup qualification during this era, and failed to qualify for three successive African Cup of Nations in the 1970s, but qualified for the Olympic Games Football Tournaments, reaching the quarter finals in 1964 and withdrawing on political grounds in 1976 and 1980.

Ghana again won the African Cup of Nations in 1978, retaining the Abdelaziz Abdallah Salem Trophy in perpetuity for having won it three times, and 1982, but a relatively barren period followed, with the full national team dominating the short lived West African Nations Cup from 1982-87, but making little progress in continent-wide competitions until the appointment of Burkhard Ziese as coach in 1991. The 1992 African Cup of Nations, after three failures to reach the final tournament, saw Ghana finish second, beaten on penalties in the final by Côte d'Ivoire.

Disharmony among the squad, which eventually lead to parliamentary and executive intervention to settle issues between two of the team, Abedi Pele and Anthony Yeboah, may have played some part in the failure of the team to build on the successes of the national underage teams. Ghana slipped to 89th place in the FIFA World Rankings, but a new generation of players who went to the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship final became the core of the team at the 2002 African Cup of Nations and the 2004 Olympic Games, and were undefeated for a year in 2005 and reached the finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the first time the team had reached the global stage of the tournament. Ghana started with a 2-0 defeat to eventual champions Italy, but wins over the Czech Republic (2-0) and USA (2-1) saw them through to the second round, where they were beaten 3-0 by Brazil.

Team honours
African Cup of Nations: 4

1963, 1965, 1978, 1982
African Cup of Nations runners-up: 3

1968, 1970, 1992
West African Nations Cup: 5

1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987
All-African Games: 2 Bronze medals

1978, 2003

World Cup record
1962 - Did Not Qualify
1966 - Withdrew from Qualification
1970 to 1978 - Did Not Qualify
1982 - Withdrew from Qualification
1986 to 2002 - Did Not Qualify
2006 - Second Round

African Nations Cup record
 
The Ghana national team at the 2008 African Cup of Nations before the quarter-final match against Nigeria.1957 - Did not enter
1959 - Did not enter
1962 - Did not qualify
1963 - Champions
1965 - Champions
1968 - Second place
1970 - Second place
1972 to 1976 - Did not qualify
   1978 - Champions
1980 - Round 1
1982 - Champions
1984 - Round 1
1986 to 1990 - Did not qualify
1992 - Second place
1994 - Quarterfinals
   1996 - Fourth place
1998 - Round 1
2000 - Quarterfinals
2002 - Quarterfinals
2004 - Did not qualify
2006 - Round 1
2008 - Third Place
 

Ghana started with a 2-0 defeat to Italy. However, they bounced back with a shock 2-0 victory over the Czech Republic

 See Wikinews article:
Ghana surge past Czech Republic in Group E
followed by a 2-1 victory over the USA team

 See Wikinews article:
Ghana beat United States of America 2-1 in Group E
to finish second in Group E and continue through to the next round along with eventual Champions Italy. Ghana's unlikely run ended when they met defending World Champions Brazil in the Second Round. Influential player Michael Essien was suspended from the match for his two yellow card's earlier in the Tournament. Despite all of this, Ghana dictated the style and pace of this match, surprising many with several near-goals. In the end, Brazil won 3-0, although there was some controversy over the first two goals scored by Ronaldo and Adriano as they were both offside. Slovakian referee Ľuboš Micheľ also sent off Asamoah Gyan in the 82' for falling in the Brazilian penalty area. Zé Roberto scored the third for Brazil off a breakaway soon after.

 See Wikinews article:
Brazil knock-out Ghana 3-0 to grab quarter-final place
Ghana were the only African side to advance to Round 2 of 2006 FIFA World Cup (Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Angola, and Tunisia were all eliminated in group play), and the sixth nation in a row from Africa to progress beyond the group stages of the World Cup. Ghana was the youngest team in the FIFA World Cup 2006 with an average age of 23 yrs and 352 days.

Because of Ghana's performances in the tournament, there has been praise for their continuous efforts to push forward and their fearless attitude. Greece Coach Otto Rehhagel told FIFA.com, the teams you used to regard as a little behind tactically, the Africans for example, have caught up. They're physically even better off than we are, as they have tremendous natural athleticism, and they've come on enormously in the areas which were non-existent before, discipline and tactics for example. Every team which faced Ghana or Cote d'Ivoire knew they'd been in a game. FIFA.com says Black stars ascend to glory. BBC says: Ghana going forward.

Of the 32 countries that participated in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Ghana was ranked the 13th Best Nation by FIFA.

2006 FIFA World Cup Matches
Category Team A Result Team B Date Venue Scorers
Round of 16  Brazil 3-0  Ghana 27 June Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund Brazil: Ronaldo 5, Adriano 45+,
Ze Roberto 84)
First Half; Second Half
Group E  Ghana 2-1  United States 22 June Frankenstadion, Nuremberg Ghana Dramani 22, Appiah 47+; USA: Clint Dempsey 43)
Pre-Match; 1st Half; 2nd half
Group E  Ghana 2-0  Czech Republic 17 June RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne Ghana: Asamoah 2, Muntari 82) 
 
Group E  Italy 2-0  Ghana 12 June AWD-Arena, Hannover Italy: Pirlo, 40 Iaquinta 83)
 

Previous Nations Cup squads

Ghana Squad - 1963 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1965 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1968 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1970 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1978 African Cup of Nations
 Ghana Squad - 1980 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1982 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1984 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1992 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1994 African Cup of Nations
 Ghana Squad - 1996 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 1998 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 2000 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 2002 African Cup of Nations
Ghana Squad - 2006 African Cup of Nations
 

Famous players
Ghana has had great players in their rich history from the early 1950s, through the 1960s ANC Championship sides to 1970 when CAF instituted a new African Footballer of the Year Best player Awards to the 1990s when Abédi Pelé and Tony Yeboah received FIFA World Player of the Year top ten nominations and the 2000s when Sammy Kuffour and Michael Essien became FIFA World Class Players and received Ballon d'Or nominations. Ghana has never been short of talent. Abédi Pelé is one of the "FIFA 100" greatest living footballers of all-time.

On 13 January 2007, the Confederation of African Football voted Abedi Pele, Michael Essien, Tony Yeboah, Ibrahim Abdul Razak and Samuel Kuffour as members of the CAF Top 30 Best African Players of all-time. In addition, Abedi and Yeboah were voted as members of the Africa Best Player of the Century in 1999 by IFFHS.