Senegal (0) vs. Egypt (0) – Results

Senegal became champion of the African Cup of Nations for the first time, after beating Egypt on penalties in the final that was played at the Paul Biya Stadium in the city of Yauné, Cameroon. The team led by Sadio Mané, who converted the final penalty, lifted the Africa Cup edition #33 trophy, after two years of absence due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The game started with everything, Senegal wanted to set the tone of the game from the start and, five minutes into the game, Sadio Mané had on his right foot the chance to give the lead to Senegal from the penalty spot. But the Egyptian goalkeeper Gabaski prevented him. It seemed that he was going to be the villain of the film, but he had his revenge in the penalty shootout.

After a first half full of emotions and arrivals by both teams, the actions ended with a score of 0-0, so the coaches of each of the teams knew that they had to change certain aspects of the game to advance their team on the scoreboard.

The second half of the game was the same as the first, with many chances created by both teams, but the lack of effectiveness of the strikers made them unable to score goals.

At match time Carlos Queiroz tried to shake up the match and made a triple substitution. He brought in Trezeguet, Zizo, and Marwan Hamdi and retired Amr El Solia, Omar Marmoush, and Mostafa Mohamed in search of more depth, but to no avail.

Senegal managed to maintain control of the game and only the wall installed by the Egyptian central defenders Mohamed Abdelmoneim and Mahmoud Hamdi prevented Senegal’s last pass from reaching the last man to find the goal.

The game opened up in the final stretch, the teams could not keep up the pace of the game and Egypt found the spaces they needed and generated the first scoring chances. A header by Zizo that went wide of the right post was the clearest for Egypt. The Egyptian improvement was not enough to break the balance and the clash lasted into extra time.

Little by little, goalkeeper Gabaski increased his prominence. Right at the start of extra time, he prevented Senegal’s goal when Bamba Dieng stood alone and shot across. Then he prevented another from the Marseille striker, with a header, which he deflected for a corner.

The match ended in the penalty shootout, where Mané did not fail in the final moment and scored the winning penalty, 4-2.