Ghana and Panama know a win here would take them close to qualifying for the knockout stages of the World Cup.
The expanded format means there are more spots up for grabs in the last 32 and three points could be enough to advance.
Ghana cruised to a first-place finish in Group I of the CAF preliminaries but have found the going tougher since, failing to win any of their last six friendly games.
Panama are 34th in the world rankings, 39 places higher than Ghana and were also impressive in qualifying, topping Group A in the CONCACAF section.
This is their second World Cup appearance and they will hope to do better than in their first when they lost all three games in Russia in 2018.
Where to watch Ghana v Panama: TV and online streams
Ghana versus Panama kicks off at midnight overnight Wednesday into Thursday UK time. You can watch it on ITV1. It can be streamed via the ITVX app.
Stats for Ghana v Panama
- Ghana will make their fifth World Cup appearance — all of them in the 21st century. Their best performance came in 2010, when they reached the quarter-finals in South Africa before being eliminated by Uruguay on penalties.
- Ghana have won only one of their last seven matches at the World Cup (D2 L4), it was against South Korea in the 2022 group stages.
- Ghana have conceded at least one goal in each of their last 10 World Cup matches – their last clean sheet was against Serbia in the 2010 group stages (1-0).
- Jordan Ayew was involved in 14 goals during the 2026 World Cup qualifiers (7 goals, 7 assists), the joint-most in CAF qualification alongside Algeria’s Mohammed Amoura (10 goals, 4 assists).
- Panama are playing in their second World Cup and their first since 2018 in Russia, finishing bottom of Group G, consisting of Belgium and England, who both competed in that edition’s third-place play-off, as well as Tunisia.
- During the 2018 World Cup, Panama conceded more goals than any other side (11), had the second-highest expected goals against per game (2.3) and the fourth-lowest possession percentage (36.3%).
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