ACCRA - Thousands of football fans thronged Ghana's main airport on Monday to welcome home the national team, who gallantly and narrowly lost to Uruguay in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in South Africa.

Kotoka International Airport was choked with fans, who started gathering six hours before the team's expected arrival. Even a two-hour delay in arrival did not deter the drumming and dancing fans who eagerly awaited their heroes' return.

There were spontaneous shouts of joy when the South African Airways jet carrying the Black Stars touched down at 11.30pm.

National flags were waved at the players as they stepped out of the plane amid the deafening roar of vuvuzelas. Fans carried placards reading: "We love you our heroes, you made Ghana and Africa proud."

Ghana's Black Stars made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup for the first time, equalling the feat chalked up by Senegal and Cameroon, and became the only African team to make it that far in South Africa.

"You have really held high the flag of Ghana and the entire African continent," Nii Nortey Duah, the deputy minister of sports, told the players at the airport.

"We did our best but luck was not on our side. We will go to Brazil in 2014 to be major contenders," said captain Stephen Appiah.