Ghana’s Yirenkyi Silences Panama With Last-Gasp Stunner
Caleb Yirenkyi’s 95th-minute tap-in gave Ghana a 1-0 win over Panama — and announced a bold new name to the world stage.
A Name Announced to the World
The clock showed 95 minutes. Panama were hanging on, every player behind the ball, willing the whistle to come. Then Brandon Thomas-Asante whipped in a cross from the left flank and there was Caleb Yirenkyi — a 20-year-old from a Danish club most World Cup watchers had never heard of — arriving at the far post to tap home and send the Ghana fans into raptures in Toronto. One touch. One moment. One player who will never be anonymous again. This is what the World Cup does: it finds its stars in the most unexpected corners.
Yirenkyi plays his club football for FC Nordsjælland in the Danish Superliga — a development academy famous for producing talent well above its weight class. A box-to-box midfielder with a powerful engine and a knack for arriving late into the penalty area, he profiles as exactly the type of player who thrives in the relentless pace of a World Cup. Ghana’s coach trusted him from the start as part of an energetic pressing unit, and Yirenkyi repaid that faith with the boldest possible statement. Panama had done well to restrict Ghana for nearly 95 minutes — it took one moment of cold composure to crack them open.
England Await — and They Have Been Warned
Ghana face England in Boston and Thomas Tuchel’s side will have watched that Panama clip on a loop. Yirenkyi’s intelligence inside the box and ability to ghost beyond a defensive line make him a genuine danger. England enter as favourites after their 4-2 dismantling of Croatia, but Ghana carry a resilience and a belief that the Panama win has only sharpened. If this game goes to the wire, Ghana have already proved they can find a winner in the dying seconds. England’s centre-backs have been put on notice: do not lose Yirenkyi in the penalty area.
The 2026 World Cup always promised to surface new names, and Caleb Yirenkyi has become one of the first. He will need to back that performance up against England and potentially beyond, but the foundation is there: composure under pressure, a nose for goal from deep, and the nerve to score in stoppage time at a World Cup. Ghana have not always been able to rely on one player to produce in the biggest moments. Against Panama in Toronto, they found one. Whether he delivers again in Boston is the next chapter in a story that is only just beginning.
