A Strong -Minded band of Medeama SC players made strong manifestation of their championship intentions when they inflicted a heart-throbbing 5-1 defeat against Accra Hearts of Oak in their match-day 31 BetPawa Ghana Premier League fixture yesterday.
It was Hearts’ heaviest defeat at home in a Premier League game, an upshot that has blown off their season into smithereens.
The vintage win catapulted Medeama to the summit of the table, going a point better than hitherto leaders Aduana Stars – and enhancing their age-long dream of steering beyond their past FA Cup and Super Cup successes.
Yesterday’s clash generated an amperage of thrill that left supporters of both teams – especially Hearts, sitting on tenterhooks, for as long as it took for the scorching game to end.
Aduana, who themselves are gunning for their third league trophy since 2017, were stunningly dragged to the butchery by Accra Lions when they suffered a humiliating 3-0 battering at the Accra Sports Stadium on Saturday. It was a result many did not see coming – just as what was witnessed yesterday in Accra, even though Hearts have been off-colour.
The fall of Aduana may have pumped a lot of blood into the arteries of Medeama ahead of the Hearts’ game.
Yesterday’s engagement also offered the Phobians the chance to stage a stirring fight to the title – as victory would have taken them just four points adrift the leaders – with three games left on the card to draw the curtains on the campaign. It was, perhaps, the reason they got off to a ferocious start yesterday – knowing what was at stake for them. They failed woefully in that bid, at long last.
But to all intents and purposes, it was the visitors who appeared more resolute and composed on the day with midfield general Kwesi Donsu taking charge of the ‘engine room’ where he operated like a loom.
Predictably, Medeama snatched the initiative as early as the 17th minute through Derrick Fordjour.
Hearts fought back gamely and were awarded a spot-kick just after the half-hour mark when Caleb Amankwah was ‘soiled’ in the area. Salifu Ibrahim stepped up and thundered it home past goalkeeper Felix Kyei for the parity, to send the ‘scattered voices’ around into delirium.
However, the cheers that greeted the equaliser had hardly died down when Referee Yaw Bless also returned the gesture as he awarded Medeama a penalty from which Hearts’ former centre-back, Vincent Atinga, perfectly converted to restore the lead.
And, just when all thought the two teams might saunter into the break with the thin lead, Medeama struck fiercely again – with former Danbort FC player Jonathan Sowah scoring from a tantalising feed from Fordjour to make it 3-1.
The red-eyed Phobians resumed the second stanza blazing on all guns with the introduction of Captain Gladson Awako, whilst the Mauve and Yellow soaked the pressure and attempted severally to catch the hosts on the break, to no avail.
However, in one of those dangerous breaks, two-goal hero Jona
than Sowah and Donsu unleashed the coup de grâce to the Phobians in the 84th and 90th minutes respectively, crushing any energy that may have been left in Hearts for any miraculous comeback.
For Medeama, who have not beaten Hearts in Accra since 2016, it was such a famous victory and one that could serve as the needed adrenaline-pumper to snatch a historic premiership diadem as they head to their Tarkwa fortress.
No wonder, the players, officials and their supporters romped into celebration after the end of hostilities as the few Hearts fans who had remained to see the demolition, booed at their players. It was a terrible day in the office for the home team.
BY JOHN VIGAH
