Although Egypt made history with their win over Ghana to remain African Champions back to back, the interesting aspect was a confession by their coach that they went all out for the trophy to avenge their failure to qualify for the World Cup.
It was supersub Mohamed ‘Gedo’ Nagy, who gave the Pharaohs their third straight title with his 85th minute goal sending the Black Stars, who are going to the World Cup in South Africa home with the silver medals.
Gedo as he is popularly called has scored from the bench in Egypt’s last four games in Angola, came on in the 63rd minute and produced his magic with five minutes left on the clock to cement Egypt’s standing as the kings of Africa.
“We said it when we came to Angola and say it again that we are African kings,” Egypt assistant coach, Shawky Gharib said after the match.
He continued: “We played to win because we didn’t qualify for the World Cup. Our Strategy was to win all the matches. This competition was the most difficult we have ever played because we played four World Cup teams. It is easy for us to win because we have players focused before a tournament with the amount of time we spend with them.”
The win also gave Egyptian coach Hassan Shehata a history-making third championship and extended Egypt’s unbeaten record in the competition to an astonishing 19 games.
Egypt were unchanged from the XI that crushed Algeria 4-0 in the semi-finals save for the absence of suspended defender Mahmoud Fatalla – former Spurs midfielder Hossam Ghaly started in his place.
Fears that striker Emad Motaeb may have to miss the final due to a hamstring strain proved unfounded.
The Black Stars made it to the final playing pragmatic rather than beautiful football, but they began in enterprising fashion, matching the Egyptians for speed and dexterity.
In-form striker Asamoah Gyan had an early shot go high over the Pharaoh’s crossbar and Serie A-based Kwadwo Asamoah had a long range effort safely scooped up by Essam al-Hadary as the supposed ‘underdogs’ counter attacked with menace.
Down at the other end Egypt were proving slippery down their right flank. On 25 minutes Kingson, clearly feeling his injury, had Mohamed Zidan’s long ranger covered by the far post.
Towards the end of the first period both skipper Ahmed Hassan, on his 172nd international appearance, and Motaeb, failed to connect with a floating 25m Egyptian freekick into the box.
Honours even it was as the sides re-emerged after the break with the 50,000 capacity stadium by now three-quarters full and the near 40 degree heat which greeted the players at kick-off cooling down as night fell.
Opoku Agyemang went into Mali referee Coulibaly Koman’s book for an ill-judged tackle on Ahmed al-Mohamady and not to be outdone Egypt’s Sayed Moawad picked up a yellow card seconds later for handball.
Koman had his hand in his pocket again to fish out a card for al-Mohamady after a collision with Opoku, with Gyan’s resulting 28m freekick edging over the woodwork.
Shehata introduced Zamalek defender Mohamed Abdel Shafi for Moawad on 56 minutes. The game badly needed a goal but what it got was another booking, this time Ghaly for pulling Asamoah.
Gyan had al-Hadary at full stretch on the hour but the keeper needn’t have worried as the Rennes forward’s shot curled round to the left of the near-post with the ball crashing into the side netting.
Shehata brought on supersub Gedo with 20 minutes left for Motaeb hoping the Al-Ittihad striker would repeat his magic.
Ghana’s best chance came in the 78th minute when al-Hadary did well to punch away Gyan’s lethal looking 28m freekick as Ghana’s youngsters had Egypt’s red shirts on the run.
Unbelievably with the game heading towards extra-time Gedo conjured up a 1-2 with Zidane and finally positioned himself ahead of the defenders to slot home the ball.