How Kofi Annan Missed "The Fall Of USA"

Ghana's match against the United States on Thursday was a big crowd puller, but United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan - the most prominent Ghanaian at the United Nations - missed the game because he was flying back from Europe.

He had been attending the opening session of the new Human Rights Council in Geneva and holding talks with Iran's foreign minister on a package of incentives offered by the Security Council's five permanent members and Germany to get Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment.

"I was stuck in the plane, so I couldn't watch it until I came back to New York," Annan told reporters on Friday.

While crossing the Atlantic, Annan said, the captain relayed a message from Adolf Ogi, his special envoy for sports, peace and development, saying "Ghana leads, 2-1, by halftime."

"But of course they kept me in agony. I didn't know what had happened in the second half. It was only towards the end (of the flight) that the hostess came and said, `The game is over. Ghana won 2-1,'" he said.

Annan said he watched the tape of the game after he got home.

"I know the U.S. played well, but they lost to a better side," he said.

Would he tell that to U.S. Ambassador John Bolton?

"I haven't told him, but if I get a chance I will tell him, and I think, since I am a better expert on soccer than he is, I hope he will accept my judgment," Annan said.

I mentioned the U.S. defeat to Bolton on his way out of the Security Council, when he stopped to talk about a possible North Korea nuclear test.

"I'll live," Bolton replied.

"Who are the Orioles playing tonight?" he asked.

Bolton, who is from Baltimore, is a big fan of his hometown baseball team. The Orioles were playing the Florida Marlins on Thursday night, but they lost 8-5.

During Thursday's U.S.-Ghana game, the Security Council was holding a daylong open meeting on the critical role of international law in promoting global peace and security.

Ghana's U.N. ambassador, Nana Effah-Apenteng, who is on the council, was 13th on the speaker's list, so he got to watch the first half of the game.

"At the interval, I came to the Security Council because I had to give a speech," he told me. "I was anxiously waiting for the results. But just about two minutes before I was called to deliver my speech in the Security Council, I got the results of the game, and of course that made me excited."

How did he get the results?

"When it was about five minutes to the end of the game somebody through body language told me, 'Nana, your country is leading by 2-1, but you still have 5 minutes to go,' and to my amazement I heard later that the referee added 5 minutes of extra time!" he said.

"When the match ended I got a lot of signs from about three colleagues," he said.

At least one diplomat, from Argentina, was spotted in the council chamber sitting behind the horseshoe-shaped speakers' table with a laptop computer tuned to the game.

"I was confident Ghana was going to win, but I just wanted to be certain," Effah-Apenteng said. "As soon as the draw was announced, I told my family there was no way the U.S. was going to beat us. So I've been vindicated."

Now, as the only African team in the second round, "we are shouldering the responsibility of the whole continent on our shoulders," he said.

South African U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, whose country will host the 2010 World Cup but was knocked out of contention this year as a result of a Ghanaian victory, said "We're going to be rooting for them."

"I hope they don't play somebody like Brazil," Kumalo said.

But they are.

The Ghanaians will face the South American powerhouse on Tuesday, a match certain to draw a huge U.N. audience.

Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger, whose country is hosting the World Cup, said "nobody would have predicted that Ghana would have done so well."

Who's going to be in the finals?

"I think Brazil is the most likely team to be in the finals, and for the others, Argentina are very good. The Italians are good. Ghana could do it too, they've played wonderfully," he said. And of course, Germany.

"I like to see a good football game," Pleuger said. "If I had to sneak out of a meeting because Germany was playing, I would most probably do it."