It took three days to reach Portland, and the 20 players were almost too weary to smile, but the Ghana women's national soccer team finally landed Friday night to set up its World Cup training camp.

"This is my first tiredness," said Alberta Sackey, the star forward and captain of the Black Queens, as the African nation's team is called.

Drums, signs and roses greeted the traveling party of 27, some of whom were in native attire, at Portland International Airport.

"This was a good welcome for us," Sackey said. "We are very tired because we had a little traffic reaching Portland."

The "traffic" included changing planes four times since their departure from Ghana early Wednesday. It took one day to reach New York and another long day to reach Los Angeles via Chicago. But in between, there was one missed flight. After spending Thursday night in Los Angeles, the team's trip ended with Friday night's arrival in Portland.

The team will be based in Tigard during its six-week countdown to the FIFA Women's World Cup, which begins Sept. 20.

"This will be a major cultural shock" for the team from the west coast of Africa, said Mike Morris, a Tigard resident who is the tour coordinator.

The Black Queens' Portland debut will be Sunday, Sept. 28, at PGE Park during the final round of Group D play. They will play Australia, with the time to be determined.

Coach Oko Aryee said the team will need a "little time to recuperate" after the long trip to establish a training camp.

That will not happen, however, since Ghana's first exhibition, or friendly, is scheduled tonight in Spokane.

"We are going to try to play," Aryee said. "I would have wished my team to have a little rest, one day or two, before they play."

Instead, the Ghana team will be up early today for a 5:30 a.m. bus departure for Spokane, where the friendly match against a Spokane all-star team is scheduled at 7 p.m.

It will be the first of several exhibitions for Aryee's team during the World Cup buildup. Another is tentatively scheduled Saturday, Aug. 16, against Canada in Seattle, and two weeks later there might be additional games in Woodburn and Eugene, Morris said. Other possible exhibitions might be played against the University of Portland and the Portland Rain.

"The Canada game was supposed to be here in Portland," Morris said, "but the Canadian coach moved it on me."

Ghana qualified for the World Cup by winning a silver medal in the recent African Championships. Ghana's only other World Cup appearance was in 1999, when it had one tie and two losses and failed to advance out of group play.

The nation of 18.8 million, which borders the Atlantic Ocean, is slightly smaller in size than Oregon.

Besides Australia, other teams in Ghana's group are Russia and the 1999 runners-up, China. Russia and China will play in the other game of the Sept. 28 double-header at PGE Park.

The top two teams from Group D will advance to the quarterfinals against the top two teams in Group C. Those games also will be at PGE Park, on Thursday, Oct. 2. Group C includes Argentina, Canada, Germany and Japan.

The semifinals will be played at PGE Park on Sunday, Oct. 5.

About 10,000 bleacher seats will be brought in to expand PGE Park's seating capacity to more than 29,000 for the three World Cup doubleheaders.

The bleachers will go up about the second week of September. The natural grass field will be installed starting Sept. 21.