Luis Suarez said he made the 'save of the tournament'
Luis Suarez said he made the 'save of the tournament'

Captain of the senior national team, Andre Ayew, has revealed despite Luis Suarez ending Ghana’s hopes of going further at the 2010 FIFA World Cup through a handball, he would have done the same if he were in that situation.

Suarez became a public enemy for the majority of Ghanaians and Africans as a whole after blocking Dominic Adiyiah’s goalbound header with his hand in the dying embers of the quarterfinal clash between Ghana and Uruguay in South Africa during the global showpiece.

Though the Black Stars were awarded a penalty for the forward’s action, the resulting advantage was missed with Ghana going on to lose the game on penalties while Uruguay qualified for the semifinal stage.

Speaking in an exclusive with JoySports’ Gary Al-Smith Ayew, who was part of Ghana’s 2010 World Cup squad, said he would have acted the same way if the incident happened at the other end.

“Like I said before and I said in the past that maybe if it was me or someone else, I could have done the same on the action,” the Al Sadd forward said when asked about Suarez’s action.

“It’s true he killed us, he killed our dream, he killed Africans’ dream, and we all have that feeling that he didn’t make us the first [African] country to get to the semifinals, so that will always be there.

“But he did it for his nation, he took a decision but we don’t look at that, we want to play well and try and succeed.”

Ghana will play Uruguay in their final group game at the World Cup in Qatar later this year after the pair were drawn in Group H alongside Portugal and South Korea.