Egypt has a chance to reach the final of the marquee continental football tournament, the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), but standing in the way is the hot host nation Cameroon.
The two giants of African football will go toe-to-toe today, Thursday 3 February, in the semi-final.
The other semi-final, pitting Senegal against Burkina Faso, was scheduled for Wednesday 2 February after Al-Ahram Weekly went to press.
Egypt reached the penultimate match after defeating Morocco 2-1 in the quarter-finals in extra time on Sunday.
Cameroon had made it to the semis a day earlier after blanking Gambia 2-0.
The Egypt-Cameroon matchup is a repeat of the 2017 AFCON final in Gabon. On that day the Pharaohs took the lead 1-0 but the Indomitable Lions fought back to win 2-1, with this tournament’s leading scorer Vincent Aboubakar scoring the winner in the 87th minute.
Whether history will repeat itself is anybody’s guess, but right now both countries are flying high. Cameroon is undefeated in the five games it has played so far. However, Cameroon has yet to be seriously tested. It defeated, for example, Comoros, which had to use an outfield player between the posts after Covid-19 and injury sidelined its three goalkeepers, then debutants Gambia, the lowest ranked of the 24 teams at the finals.
On the other hand, Egypt has played three top-notch teams, losing 1-0 to Nigeria, but then in the knockout stages, edging past Ivory Coast and Morocco. So Egypt goes into the semi-final battle-hardened and could startle a softer-bellied Cameroon side that has taken the easier route to the semis.
Against Morocco, currently 28 in the world, Egypt at 45, showed its mettle. Liverpool ace Mohamed Salah and substitute Mahmoud Hassan Trezeguet scored for the Pharaohs who went behind after Soufiane Boufal converted an early penalty for the Atlas Lions. It was déjà vu after Egypt beat Morocco 1-0 in the 2017 AFCON, again in the quarter-finals. Before Sunday’s encounter, Morocco had held a 3-2 lead from previous Cup of Nations tournament clashes.
In Cameroon, following their opening group stage loss to Nigeria in which they were outplayed, then labouring in two 1-0 wins over minnows Guinea-Bissau and Sudan, the Pharaohs improved markedly in their round of 16 match against Ivory Coast, with the team defending doggedly and attacking consistently in a match that went to extra time, before eventually coming out on top 5-4 in the penalty shootout.
The match seems to have been the turning point Egypt was looking for. It created numerous scoring chances, did not give up despite missing all those chances, and scored their five spot kicks when in many instances they miss one or even two.
The win against Morocco, a historic North African nemesis which had beaten Egypt 14 times against only four losses before Sunday’s quarter-final, cemented Egypt’s best stretch since the 2017 AFCON final. What followed was one debacle after the other: an embarrassing group stage exit from the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a round of 16 loss to South Africa in the 2019 AFCON played in Egypt, followed by a couple of years of qualifying to this year’s AFCON and this year’s World Cup in Qatar but by getting by mediocre opponents who did not bring out the best in Egypt’s players. Just recently, Egypt finished fourth in the FIFA Arab Cup, not the best finish for a country that pioneered the sport in the Arab world.
Egypt has won AFCON more than any other country, seven times, at one time three in succession, another record, but its last African victory lap was in 2010. To get crown No 8 Egypt must be at the apex of its game, starting with Cameroon, and by all accounts, it is close to getting there.
Egypt’s players have in the past two matches revved up their performance, none more so than Salah who has often been maligned for playing better for Liverpool than for Egypt. True enough, for his country, Salah many times does not look like the player often described by pundits as the best in the world at present.
But after a slow start Salah is hitting his stride in this AFCON, netting twice, plus the decisive penalty against Ivory Coast, and finding the target from a rebound that levelled Egypt with Morocco, before squaring the ball for an assist and the winner to fellow Premier League forward Trezeguet in the 100th minute.
Despite Salah’s underwhelming performances for Egypt, he has been involved in 64 per cent of Egypt’s goals at the AFCON — nine of 14 — since he made his competition debut in 2017.
Salah, two-time African Footballer of the Year, made his debut for the national team in 2011, a year after they last conquered Africa by beating Ghana, and is still searching for that first major title with his country.
Destiny may beckon, however, Egypt may need to play against Cameroon with third-choice keeper Mohamed Sobhi who came on for his international debut against Morocco after second-string goalkeeper Mohamed Abul-Gabal hurt himself while tipping a header on to the bar near the end of normal time. Abul-Gabal himself was replacing starting XI stopper Mohamed Al-Shinnawi who received a leg injury against Ivory Coast.
In the semi-final Egypt’s renowned defensive strength will be tested to the hilt by Cameroon sharpshooters Aboubakar (six) and Karl Toko-Ekambi (five), the leading scorers in this AFCON, having bagged between them all 11 goals scored by the Indomitable Lions.
Aboubakar, the Saudi Arabia-based marauder, fired blanks against Gambia, denied a hat-trick by two close opportunities and a header in the chest of the goalkeeper.
Lyon forward Toko-Ekambi plugged the gap by netting twice in seven minutes.
Playing at home will be a sure Cameroonian advantage, and the 60,000 seat Olembe Stadium in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde has been given the nod to host the semi-final with Egypt as well as the final on Sunday 6 February.
But Olembe is where a fatal crush outside the ground killed eight people, including an eight-year-old boy, and injured 38 others, when the hosts faced Comoros in the round of 16.
Witnesses described chaotic scenes outside the stadium as thousands of ticketless fans struggled to gain access via an entry gate.
Although football stampedes are not uncommon, everyone is a tragedy. Cameroon was supposed to be prepared for this tournament. It certainly had enough time after it was stripped of hosting rights for the 2019 event because it was not ready.
The hope is that the safety of fans and players will be at a premium following a statement by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) that said it was “confident” the safety and security of spectators “will be assured”.
Before that fateful loss to Cameroon in Libreville 2017, in which Aboubakar famously lifted the ball over the head of then Egyptian central defender Ali Gabr before driving the ball home, Egypt had played Cameroon 26 times, winning 13, losing six and drawing seven. During that period Egypt dented the Cameroonian net 33 times against 20.
Advantage Egypt but as this AFCON has shown, as the likes of defending champion Algeria and four-time winner Ghana left the party extra early, predicting winners from scoresheets from the past is done at one’s own peril.
AFCON notes
- The Egyptian team has received notice from the AFCON Organising Committee that it will open an official investigation into the locker room skirmishes that erupted following the quarter-final match between Egyptian and Moroccan players after a number of videos of the incidents were uploaded on social media.
- The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has filed an official complaint to the AFCON Organising Committee concerning the accommodation of the team in a hotel in Yaoundé which it described as “very poor” especially, the EFA said, since there were a number of vacant rooms in better hotels after several teams paid farewell to the championship and headed back home. The EFA added that the Moroccan team was put up in a 5-star hotel in the run-up to the quarter-final.
- The Egyptian team has secured the services of a private laboratory in Yaoundé for extra PCR tests to be conducted on some players to deal with possible positive cases before the semi-final with Cameroon. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has been performing its own tests on the tournament’s players.
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