{"id":210532,"date":"2025-10-20T08:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/ghana\/ghana-black-stars-face-stern-tests-against-japan-south-korea\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T08:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:12:08","slug":"ghana-black-stars-face-stern-tests-against-japan-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/ghana\/ghana-black-stars-face-stern-tests-against-japan-south-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana: Black Stars Face Stern Tests Against Japan, South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"26\"><em>Ghana<\/em> will take on <em>Japan<\/em> in the 2025 <em>Kirin Challenge Cup<\/em>, a crucial test match designed to prepare both teams for the <em>2026 FIFA World Cup<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"45\">Having already secured qualification, both nations aim to use the match to refine strategies and assess player performance. <strong>Japan<\/strong> booked their World Cup spot in March with a 2-0 win over Bahrain, while <strong>Ghana<\/strong> confirmed their place with a 1-0 victory over Comoros in Accra.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"46\">Coach <strong>Otto Addo<\/strong>&#8216;s squad will evaluate players and make tactical adjustments ahead of their&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202510170250.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 West Africa <a title=\"Ghana\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/west-africa\/ghana\/\">Ghana<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghana will take on Japan in the 2025 Kirin Challenge Cup, a crucial test match designed to prepare both teams for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Having already secured qualification, both nations aim to use the match to refine strategies and assess player performance. Japan booked their World Cup spot in March with a 2-0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":210533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4507],"tags":[258,256,8561,7127,4508,4509,1479,6789,257,5069,254,9435,8923,11560],"class_list":["post-210532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ghana","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-black","tag-face","tag-ghana","tag-ghana-news","tag-japan","tag-korea","tag-news","tag-south","tag-south-africa-today","tag-stars","tag-stern","tag-tests"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}