A mild upset: Ghana (40% pre-match) got past Panama. The decisive moment came late, in the 90th minute.
Expected goals race
GhanaPanama● goal
Cumulative expected goals, minute by minute. ESPN's free feed has no xG, so each shot's xG is estimated with a naive distance-and-angle logistic model fitted on shot coordinates from the play-by-play.
Pre-match Elo: Ghana 1750, Panama 1730. The model priced this Ghana 40% / draw 26% / Panama 34%, most likely score 1–1. A plausible-but-not-favoured outcome. The result moves 24 Elo points from Panama to Ghana — that flows straight into the next round of tournament simulations.
Timeline
16'YELLOWCaleb Yirenkyi (Ghana) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
45'SUBSubstitution, Ghana. Benjamin Asare replaces Lawrence Ati Zigi because of an injury.