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26 min: Beever-Jones almost gets the better of Boakye but the experienced captain manages to get out of trouble. Ghana are playing out from the back and have had some success but it certainly makes for some nervy moments.
24 min: Ghana have quite a bit of support in Southampton, which is great to see. Yellow shirts are all on their feet as the visitors win a free throw.
23 min: Kelly is applauded off the pitch. She manages to hobble off without help, so hopefully that signals good news. Mead replaces her.
22 min: Kelly is still getting treatment and it looks like Mead is getting ready to come on.
20 min: Kelly has gone down and Ghana put the ball out of play. Looks like the player is holding the back of her knee.
18 min: Kearns tries to find Park with a through ball from the left but there is too much speed on the ball and it is straight to the keeper.
17 min: The commentary team remind us that China were 3-0 down on Saturday at this point. Ghana certainly proving the better test.
14 min: Kearns gets booked for pulling Asantewaa’s shirt and then kicking the ball away. Unnecessary given the ball was still in Ghana’s half.
12 min: And a chance on the other end! Wobben-Moy slips as Boaduwaa speeds by her and the Ghanian drills a low shot, but it is straight to Moorhouse.
10 min: Close! A fantastic ball from Walsh and Kelly comes in at it quick, in the middle of the box. She hits it first time, but the ball has too much power and it goes flying above the bar.
8 min: England with most of the possession. Kelly whips the ball in again but Beever-Jones is offside and it is just too far for Park to reach.
GOAL! England 1-0 Ghana (Kendall 5)
Kendall came through as a young player at Southampton and she scores her first England goal at St. Mary’s. Kelly gets the ball on the left and crosses it into the box. Simon makes a mess of her clearance and the ball lands on a plate for Kendall who fires it home from close range.
3 min: Ghana get forward and Boaduwaa looks through on goal. She opts to lay it off and fluffs the final pass but Wubben-Moy did well to hold her line and the flag eventually goes up anyway.
2 min: The smoke from the fireworks has made it a bit hard to see in this opening minute. Ghana press immediately but England manage to get up the pitch and the play ends in a very tame Kelly shot.
Kick-off: England 0-0 Ghana
The national anthems have been sung, team photos have been taken and we are underway at St. Mary’s. England in their all-black kit while Ghana don their all-yellow away kit.
The atmosphere is bouncing in Southampton with the fireworks a plenty. The players are in tunnel and kick-off is six minutes away.
Sarina Wiegman hailed her side for another “incredible” year after being asked to sum up England’s 2025.
The season started last year around this time with the team getting prepared for the Euros. I think the camps we had from February towards the Euros was great and I think the tournament itself, I’ve said a couple of times, was an incredible tournament again.
On the pitch, I still think it was insane how the games developed but off the pitch was really calm and I think I enjoyed it more than I did the other tournaments before. I like now the homecoming too, having these friendlies, connecting with the fans.
The Dutchwoman also voiced her excitement in playing as African side, an opportunity England rarely get to do.
We have never played Ghana. We talk a lot about when we play the African countries and they have their different styles of play, and different tweaks in how they want to play, but you often see a lot of speed and physicality.
Ghana also have a clear structure of how they want to play. In moments they want to play a possession game but they also want to be direct. That is what we want to force them to do – not to give them time to play.
The Ghana head coach, Kim Björkegren, has called for bravery and belief for today’s game against the European champions.
Björkegren said he watched England’s rout against China and felt his side could learn from the visitors’ errors.
I can’t blame them too much. But I think in how they attacked the game, they made some mistakes. They were too afraid. And if you are afraid to play against England, then you’re going to be destroyed, exactly what happened.
The Swede stressed Ghana must approach Sarina Wiegman’s with a different mentality.
We need to attack the game differently. We believe in ourselves. We know we have strong players who are ready to tackle, to work hard, to take every duel. I hope we can stay in the game as long as possible. Our gameplan is to win. Whether that’s realistic or not, I don’t know, and I don’t care.
The former London City Lionesses midfielder Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah also said that while Ghana respect England, they do not fear them.
We can respect the opponent, but at the same time we need to be ourselves. We are the Black Queens, and we need to do our things.
We enjoy the football that we play. And we know that when we play our football, we can be a force against any team, any country we come up against.
There’s no fear whatsoever within our camp. We believe in ourselves, and we’ll see the performance we put out tomorrow. We play our best football when we believe in ourselves.
Team news
England XI (4-3-3): Moorhouse; Bronze, Le Tissier, Hinds, Wubben-Moy; Walsh, Kendall, Park; Kelly, Kearns, Beever-Jones.
Subs: Charles, Baggaley, Stanway, Russo, Hemp, Toone, Mead, Blindkilde Brown, Roebuck, Clinton, Denton, Godfrey.
After saying she would use the final games of the year to experiment, Sarina Wiegman opted for a fairly strong XI against China. Today, a few newer faces start with only Only Moorhouse, Le Tissier, Bronze and Walsh keep their places from the weekend’s starting lineup.
Ghana XI (4-2-3-1): Conlan; Simon, Boakye, Ama Duah, Yeboah; Cudjoe, Asantewaa; Kusi, Boye-Hlorkah, Nyamekye; Boaduwaa.
Subs: Abambila, Achiaa, Adubea, Amenyeku, Amoh, Amponsah, Aniwaa, Badu, Marfo, Kim, Bonsu, McCarthy, Norshie.
Simon makes her debut for Ghana after an allegiance swap from France with the long serving captain Boakye starting alongside her. Achiaa makes a return but is only fit enough the bench. Boaduwaa, the reigning Ghanian female footballer of the year, scored four goals during her side’s two games at the last international break and will hope to add to that tally.
Preamble
Two days ago England hammered China 8-0 at Wembley in what proved to be a relatively easy test and Sarina Wiegman’s side will hope to close out 2025 in similar fashion against Ghana in Southampton.
The Black Queens come to St. Mary’s in good form, beating Egypt 7-0 on aggregate in a two-leg 2026 Afcon qualifier after coming in third in this summer’s edition. Their head coach is Kim Björkegren, the Swede most recently managing Racing Louisville in the NWSL.
Team news coming up shortly before the 7pm GMT kick-off. As always, feel free to get in touch with your questions, comments, thoughts, predictions via email. And since this is England’s last match of the year, send over your favourite Lioness goal, assist, block, save or overall moment of 2025. Plenty to choose from!
