Ghana were made to fight hard but will be delighted with how they applied themselves to defeat Tunisia 2-1 after extra time to advance to the Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals.

From our TopPartner allAfrica.com

Zambia now await, in the Last 4, a contest which Ghana will expect to win. But at the same time the Black Stars will approach the game giving Chipolopolo a healthy dollop of respect.

Red card
Worrying for the Black Stars will be the injury to skipper John Mensah, who has had a strange tournament so far: two goals, a red card and now an injury in the not even one-and-a-half matches he has played.

Ghana assistant coach Kwesi Appiah says they expected Tunisia to front-up as they did, but that the game-plan worked well.

Break the defence
"We all know Tunisia have got a very good team," Appiah said. "We had to plan a real tactical game to make sure that we could hold them and at the same time rely on counterattacks to break their defence.

"We knew very well that it wasn't going to be an easy a game. So we were not surprised when it went [to] extra time. But the most important thing was making sure that we got to the next stage."

The winner came from Andre Ayew after a goalkeeping howler from Tunisian gloveman Aymen Mathlouthi.

Ayew and brother Jordan are under constant pressure in the Black Stars squad, unfairly expected to live up to the enormous talent of their father, Abedi Pele.

Ghana vs Zambia
The slightly more mature Andre defended his sibling's place in the side after he came on as a substitute against Tunisia: "I think he handled this pressure very well. He has proved to everyone that he is a player going to become a great player and I hope that he is going to continue like that until the end of the tournament."

Both will be important if the Black Stars are to lift their first African title for 30 years. Ghana beat Tunisia on their way to that title, albeit in the group stages, and will be hoping that Sunday's win is some sort of omen for success.

The final many have expected between Africa's top two-ranked sides is still very much on, but both Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, who play Mali in the second semi-final on Wednesday, still have plenty of work to do.