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Former Ghana international John Mensah is trending for a reason you might never think of.
No, he’s not in the news for any controversies or scandals. The legendary Black Stars defender is the talk of social media, particularly X (formerly Twitter), for his iconic or maybe not-so-iconic penalty during the 2010 World Cup.
Antoine Semenyo’s Bournemouth teammate Dango Ouattara scored a brilliant penalty that many have described as John Mensah-esque in the Cherries’ 5-4 penalty win over Wolves in the FA Cup fifth round.
Ouattara scored the second penalty for his side with one of the coldest kicks you’ll see in the game. He barely moved away from the ball after placing it in the spot. He then confidently glanced at the Wolves goalkeeper and hit a cheeky low shot as Sam Johnstone watched it roll past him.
Johnstone had no chance of saving the unexpected strike.
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A video of Outtarra’s penalty shared by X page “The 44” with the caption; “This is one of the COLDEST penalties I’ve ever seen” has since gone viral.
Ghanaians compare Ouattara's penalty to John Mensah's
It didn’t take long before Ghanaians flooded the post to bring back memories of a similar penalty kick by the “Rock of Gibraltar” in the historic 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Mensah struck a similar penalty with the same technique in that crucial encounter against Ghana’s number one antagonist, Luis Suarez’s national team.
However, unlike Outtara, Mensah took a few steps back but missed from the spot, wasting the Black Stars’ chance to level the penalty scores.
Luckily, Uruguay missed their next penalty, but it was just not meant to be for Ghana and Africa as a whole.
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Dominic Adiyiah failed to convert his before Sebastián Abreu’s Panenka kick eliminated Ghana from being the first African country to qualify for the World Cup semi-finals.