Tuesday, July 4 2006 15:53 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Accra: Ghana has conferred the nation's highest honour on its national football team, the Black Stars, following their good showing at the World Cup, where they qualified for the knockout stages before going out 3-0 to Brazil.

President John Agyekm Kufuor Monday awarded the Order of Volta on the team for their impressive performance in Germany. He said it was in appreciation of the team's performance of being the only African country to reach the knockout stage and putting Ghana on the world map. Kufour said their performance lit up the country with happiness and triggered goodwill around the world. "For the past two weeks, you raised the flag of Ghana to levels that the world is looking at with some envy," he said. Kufuor said should the young team be maintained, it would perform very well in future tournaments. The Black Stars played well above themselves, qualifying alongside Italy out of a group that included the Czech Republic and the US. They overcame an opening 2-0 loss to Italy to defeat the Czechs, rated number two by FIFA, 2-0 and then dispose of the US rated number five 2-1.