World Cup Corner

At the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations final, the only goal scored came from the Egyptian team and helped the team register a second successive cup final win over Cameroon. The goal came in the 77th minute of the game, which made for a truly exciting match that left spectators sitting at the edge of their seats.

The winning goal was scored by Mohamed Aboutrika after he received a pass from Mohamed Zidan. Zidan managed to get the ball after Rigobert Song of Cameroon made a crucial error.

The Egypt Pharoahs came close to scoring earlier in the game, at about 61 minutes in, when Hosni Abd Rabou hit the post. Ultimately, this miss didn’t matter since the team still pulled out a victory.

This most recent win is the sixth Africa Cup of Nations win for Egypt, which set a new record. In addition, since the team won the last tournament, this win gave them back to back wins of the title. Cameroon was also looking to win the title for its fifth time, but fell short and hardly gave Egypt any problems at all.

The fact that Egypt won the title twice in a row was truly something special for coach Hassan Shehata. With the recent win, he becomes only the second coach to have successfully led his team to successive victories.

Despite the close score, Egypt was clearly the dominant team throughout the event. In fact, they created numerous scoring opportunities during the first half of the game. In addition, they clearly were the fastest and more mobile of the two teams, but it took some time for them to finally make good on their clear superiority. They also managed to take advantage of the act that Cameroon depends solely on its physical power.

Due to its shortfalls in athletic prowess, Cameroon was forced to take a defensive stance throughout the game. As a result, the team was only able to give striker, Samuel Eto’o, a few opportunities to try to score.

Aboutrika did come close to scoring while only 13 minutes into the game. He tool a 35 yard shot, but it was pushed around the post by Carlos Kameni, the goalkeeper for Cameroon. Two minutes after that attack, Cameroon had to make a substitution and replaced Alexandre Song with Gilles Binya. This substitution didn’t come as much of a surprise since Song was still recovering from an injury that he suffered during an earlier game.

Geremi, Cameroon’s defender, forced Essam Al-Hadari to make a save from a free-kick. Egypt then reciprocated by almost taking the lead a few seconds later. Hadari managed to find Emad Moteab, who then took a 15 yard shot. This shot was parried by Kameni, but was shot into the path of Aboutrika who made a shot that was much too high.

With only nine minutes left to go before half-time, the ball found its way over the defence established by Cameroon and made its way to Moteab, who was inside the area. Kameni managed to make a save from this shot, however, and the game remained goalless.

Cameroon then came back with what seemed like renewed purpose. This resulted in a sudden increase in the tempo of the game, but Egypt didn’t allow Cameroon’s rally to last for long. In fact, Kameni made two more outstanding saves. In addition, Amr Zaki took a shot from close-range and punched away a 25 yarder from Abd-Rabou.

From this point on, Egypt continued to put pressure on Cameroon and, with only 13 minutes left, Egypt managed to score its first goal. Robert Song from Cameroon was punished for poor defense and for losing in a tussle with Zidan.

Zidan managed to push the ball along the box’s edge and put it into the path of Aboutrika. This resulted in a simple finish from 15 yards. Egypt celebrated their success as Song hid his face in his shirt in shame for his mistake. He then headed over the bar in stoppage-time.

Egypt did win the first two times it participated in the tournament, which was in 1957 and 1959. Since the competition is so much tougher now, however, their most recent victories have more significance.