Columbia overcomes early injury, substitution to top Ghana and reach World Cup Round of 16

KANSAS CITY, Mo.— The plan for Colombia against Ghana on Friday night probably did not involve making a substitution just minutes into the match.That plan also went by the wayside when Jhon Córdoba appeared to hurt his groin.Forced into making a rare early move, Colombia coach Néstor Lorenzo sent Luis Suárez onto the field, and he promptly delivered a sharp cross that Jhon Arias flicked into the net, resulting in the only goal on a sweltering night at Arrowhead Stadium and sending Los Cafeteros into the Round of 16 at the World Cup with a 1-0 victory over the Black Stars.

“I think football is a team sport,” Lorenzo said.“Ultimately you do have little groups in certain areas, but you have to have a unit — a whole — and I think our squad has been working on that from the very onset.

That was the goal from the very beginning.” The early goal was a good omen: Colombia has won 11 consecutive World Cup matches when scoring first.Now, it will play Switzerland on Tuesday in Vancouver, British Columbia, for a spot in the quarterfinals.“We have won absolutely nothing,” Colombia star Luis Díaz said.

“These games are very difficult.Every game we’ve seen has been tight.

The good thing and the positive thing is that we’re playing very well, we feel comfortable, we are being a family, we are working as a team, and that will work for what is coming.”Los Cafeteros thought they had doubled their lead in the 56th minute, when Díaz found the back of the net only to see the offside flag raised, and the fleet-footed Colombia forward had a point-blank shot saved by Lawrence Ati Zigi a few minutes later.Zigi wound up making seven saves to keep Ghana in the game.“Sometimes it happens in football,” Ghana defender Jerome Opoku said, “that it doesn’t go your way.”It was 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.1 Celsius) with a heat index of 96 when the game kicked off at 8:30 p.m.local time, the late start intentional due to the expected heat of Midwestern summe...