Caleb Yirenkyi Scores Latest Goal of World Cup 2026 to Sink Panama
Three yards out, stretching, stabbing at thin air until the ball finally crossed the line. That single, scrappy motion from Caleb Yirenkyi turned a tense, goalless slog in Toronto into delirium, and gave Ghana a win that looked unlikely for almost the entire match.
Yirenkyi scored in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time as Ghana beat Panama 1-0 at BMO Field in Toronto, Canada, on June 18, 2026, in their Group L opener at the 2026 World Cup. It stood as the latest goal scored at the tournament to that point, and it came against a Panama side that had matched Ghana for long stretches of an open, scrappy contest.
Here is the direct answer for those catching up: Ghana beat Panama 1-0. Yirenkyi scored the only goal in the 95th minute, finishing from point-blank range after Brandon Thomas-Asante burst past Jose Cordoba and slid the ball across the face of goal. It was the only moment of real quality in a match low on clear chances for either side.
For most of the night, Yirenkyi was a peripheral figure. He had one shot blocked in the 50th minute and otherwise spent his evening doing the unglamorous work in midfield, helping Ghana battle through a disjointed first half in which Panama, not the Black Stars, created the better early openings. Cecilio Waterman forced an early save and Jiovany Ramos went close before the break. Ghana were second best for long periods, and there was little to suggest the night belonged to anyone wearing red, gold and green.
The picture began to shift when Antoine Semenyo took the game by the scruff of the neck after the hour mark. He slid a ball across goal that begged to be tapped in, only for Ramos to produce a goal-saving block to deny Jordan Ayew. Moments later Semenyo nearly scored himself. Ghana were pressing now, and the longer the match went, the more it felt like a goal was coming from somewhere.
It arrived in the cruelest way for Panama. Thomas-Asante, on as a substitute since the 58th minute, picked up the ball on the left and just about beat Cordoba in a foot race. He squared it low across the six-yard box. Yirenkyi, arriving from deep, had to stretch every inch of his frame to reach it, but he got there, stabbed at the ball, and forced it over the line. Toronto erupted. Panama had one desperate chance left, a header from substitute Ismael Diaz off a corner, but it never carried enough power to find the net.
This was Ghana’s first World Cup win since 2022, a tournament in which they had managed just one victory in their previous seven matches at the finals. Truth is, this performance did not look like the kind that ends a drought of that length until the final five minutes changed everything. Ghana finished with 1.25 expected goals to Panama’s 0.73, but spent long stretches of the match chasing a Panama side that had 62 percent of the possession and 503 accurate passes.
For Yirenkyi, a player who had touched the ball just 45 times all night, the moment will define how this match is remembered. He did not orchestrate the goal. He did not even create the chance. What he did was arrive at the right place, with the right instinct, and refuse to let the ball bounce away. Sometimes that is the whole job. Ghana now sit level with England atop Group L, and Panama face a near-impossible task to recover from a defeat decided by a single stretched leg in stoppage time.