Ghana continues Africa Cup of Nations group play Saturday when it takes on Mali in a match scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. eastern.

With a 1-0 win over Uganda in its first match, Ghana (1-0-0, 3 pts.), whose roster includes Crew SC center back Jonathan Mensah and right back Harrison Afful, sits atop the Group D standings. A win over Mali (0-1-0, 1 pt.) would all but guarantee Ghana a spot in the quarterfinals, as it owns a head-to-head tiebreaker over Uganda.

Ghana will be without left back Baba Rahman, who was replaced after 39 minutes against Uganda after reportedly tearing his left ACL.

Afful played a full 90 minutes in the opener, finishing with two clearances. Mensah, who played for Ghana the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, did not play in the match.

Africa Cup of Nations matches can be streamed Online with a Fubo TV subscription.

Good day

New Crew SC forward Niko Hansen went back to his hometown Thursday to appear on “Good Day Sacramento,” a daytime show on the local CBS affiliate.

The No. 9 overall pick in the 2017 MLS SuperDraft, Hansen played club soccer in Davis, California before playing high school soccer at Jesuit High School in Carmichael. He then played his college soccer at New Mexico, where he scored 13 goals as a senior.

“Both my parents played soccer, so I guess I didn’t really have a choice. I’ve loved it since I was 2,” Hansen told show host Ken Rudolph. “I’ve played on a team since I was 2 years old, so this is my 20th year of playing soccer.”

While juggling a soccer ball in jeans, Hansen, who signed a pre-draft MLS contract, said he would head to Columbus on Friday before the Crew’s Monday departure to Brazil. The Crew will remain in Sao Paulo until Feb. 9.

Rudolph led Hansen with a question about returning to Sacramento in the event the city is able to land an expansion franchise.

“We’ll see about that,” Hansen laughed. “We’ll see about that.”

Rudolph then showed Hansen a clip of Hansen performing a back handspring after scoring a goal at New Mexico. Asked if he could do the same thing in the “Good Day Sacramento” studio, Hansen politely declined.

Hansen and defender Lalas Abubakar, selected No. 5 overall out of Dayton, both signed pre-draft MLS contracts.

Forward Connor Maloney of Penn State and goalkeeper Logan Ketterer of Bradley, selected in the third and fourth rounds of the MLS SuperDraft, respectively, are both unsigned.

Easy schedule?

A week removed from the release of the 2017 MLS game schedule, MLSSoccer.com ranked the Crew’s schedule Thursday as the league’s easiest.

There isn’t all that much variance in the strength of schedule index – it ranges from 1.30 (Crew SC) to 1.43 (Vancouver Whitecaps) – and, as the article points out, the Crew does not have the advantage of playing its 2016 self. Still, the 2017 schedule does hold a few advantages for the Crew.

Crew SC plays matches against Seattle, Portland and Dallas at home. It also has the benefit of playing Chicago Fire, which finished with an MLS-low 31 points in 2016, three times as opposed to two.

According to MLSSoccer.com, the rankings are calculated based on the home and road points per game earned by a team’s opponents in 2016.

aerickson@dispatch.com

@AEricksonCD