And given their draw, the Black Stars have the opportunity to go further in the competition than any other African team have done before.
The USA await in the last 16, and then the winner of Uruguay's clash with Korea Republic.
Ghana will respect all of those opponents, but not fear them.
In World Cup history, no African team has got further than the the quarter finals, and this time around, all the pressure will be on Ghana after South Africa, Algeria, Cameroon and Nigeria crashed out at the group stages.
By Thursday, only Cote d'Ivoire were still alive, but faced an almost-mathematically impossible task to make it through Group G alongside Brazil.
Ghana's Asamoah Gyan is relishing the challenge of carrying the hopes of a continent.
"We are very happy (to have qualified), even if we wanted to have other African teams come through as well," Gyan told fifa.com.
"We are on the right path and we are representing our continent, which makes us very happy.
"The Americans, though, are a very good team, they expend a lot of energy and are strong physically. But we too have good players, it is for that that we have so much self-confidence."
