The West african country were crowned the new kings of African football when it defeated Egypt on penalties to win the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) for its first continental trophy.

The match, played on Sunday in Cameroon, ended in Senegal’s favour 4-2 in the penalty shootout following a scoreless draw at the end of extra time.

Star Senegal striker Sadio Mane had a penalty saved in the seventh minute of the game. But he made no mistake when it counted the most, notching the winner in the shootout, and for himself, the award as the tournament’s best player.

After two previous final defeats, Senegal finally bagged the big one while Egypt missed out on a record-extending eighth crown.

Egypt’s loss was a heart-breaker, coming as it did at the finish line. Another view is that because so few people gave Egypt any chance of winning the trophy, just reaching the final was good enough and should be applauded.

Agreed. If you ask anybody how did Egypt reach the final of AFCON, there would be few convincing answers. Before the tournament began, when all the talk was on who might win it, Egypt was not in the conversation. The debate centred on Algeria, the defending champion, or Senegal, the runner-up of the last AFCON in 2019. Or hosts and five-time champion Cameroon, or four-time winners Ghana, three-timer Nigeria, or Ivory Coast which has won it twice, or the always contending North African pair Tunisia and Morocco.

Egypt was an afterthought. Even though it has won AFCON a record seven times, the last was in 2010. And even though it reached the final in 2017, it embarrassingly exited the 2019 edition - played on Egyptian soil - in the round of 16.

Egypt did not appear menacing in the qualifiers to AFCON. In the FIFA Arab Cup, staged recently in Qatar, Egypt finished fourth, not satisfactory for a country that used to be the best in the neighbourhood.

The belief that Egypt was not going to go anywhere in AFCON was reinforced by a slow start in the group stage, losing 1-0 to Nigeria before eking out two 1-0 wins against lesser rivals Guinea-Bissau and Sudan.

But Egypt - without warning - suddenly came alive, with wins against Ivory Coast, Morocco and Cameroon, three African footballing giants.

The final against Senegal beckoned but critics and fans said reality would step in soon enough to burst Egypt’s bubble. On paper, Senegal was the stronger team, had an extra 24 hours to rest before the climatic game and had won all their matches in regulation time. Before the final, Egypt had played 360 minutes, twice as much as Senegal (the last four matches, 120 minutes each, were played in 12 days). The thinking was that Egypt’s players, never known for their physical fitness, would wilt after this Herculean effort and under the burning Cameroon sun. Egypt also had to do without its Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz on the touchline. Queiroz was given a red card in the semi-final for dissent and spent the final watching from the seats of the Olembe Stadium in Yaounde.

In the final, Egypt stood its ground for as long as it could in the face of a Senegal onslaught. Senegal should have won the game long before the shootout if not for Mohamed Abou-Gabal (the word ‘mountain’ is aptly in his name). The 191 centimetre Abou-Gabal was the second-string goalkeeper to starter Mohamed Al-Shinnawi who received a leg injury in mid-tournament which forced him out permanently.

It’s cruel to say but probably the best thing that happened to Egypt in the tournament was the injury suffered by Al-Shinnawi. For all of Al-Shinnawi’s experience and shot stopping, especially in cutting down angles and thwarting breakaways, he is relatively poor in saving penalties. A hamstring forced him out of the round of 16 match against Ivory Coast, after which his understudy Abou-Gabal made his entrance heroic, just in time to save a crucial penalty shootout that helped win the game.  

Abou-Gabal continued his extraordinary run, preventing a sure goal by Morocco in the 2-1 quarter-final win before blocking in succession two more spot kicks in the semi-final against hosts Cameroon.

In the final, he denied Mane an early penalty while in the first half and in extra time preventing several certain goals.

His save of Bouna Sarr’s penalty in the shootout could have been enough to seal the deal for Egypt had it not been for two penalty misses by a pair of rookie defenders that gave Senegal the crown.

For his efforts, Abou-Gabal (whose jersey name is Gabaski which has not caught on with the Egyptian fan), was selected the final’s MVP and was one of the standout players of the tournament.

A newly-formed fan club for Abou-Gabal emerged after the final. Famed Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho tweeted: “You fought the Good Fight till the end. Don’t be ashamed to cry before moving to the next step.” From Canada’s Ambassador to Egypt Louis Dumas: “If you ask me Abou-Gabal was the shining star of the tournament.”

With all this adulation, it will be interesting to see whether Abou-Gabal will be anointed Egypt’s new starting goalkeeper or if he will return to the bench.

Much of the pre-final game media hype billed the encounter between Mane and Egypt’s captain Mohamed Salah as a “battle”. That sort of journalism had its detractors who correctly pointed out that headlines like “Mane’s Senegal” and “Salah’s Egypt” made it sound like these were the only players or the only good players on the teams when in fact, football is a team sport. At any rate, the two Liverpool teammates were both chasing their first major trophy with their country to add an international honour to their Premier League and Champions League titles at club level. Both had experienced disappointment before in their quest for a first African title; Salah in 2017 and 2019, and Mane in a 1-0 defeat by Algeria, also three years ago.

They both played roles in their country’s run for the title this year but Mane was more consequential for his team, scoring three goals and setting up another two before netting the penalty winner – despite suffering a concussion in a last-16 match with Cape Verde. Salah finished with two goals and one assist. His best performance was the quarter-final against Morocco in which he nailed a rebound for the tying goal and dinking one defender before setting up Mahmoud Trezeguet for the eventual 2-1 win.

But once again, Salah could not fully transport what he does in Liverpool, in the Premier League, to Egypt’s national team. To be fair, he was outgunned most of the time as his teammates would constantly hand him the ball on the right side, expecting him to sprint 50 metres before either scoring, which he did not do much, or setting up a winning pass which he did even less so.

It’s this one-dimensional offense of Egypt that was woefully inept. For much of the tournament, especially against strong teams, Egypt played not to lose. The team consisted not just of four defenders but of an entire defensive make-up. Egypt tried to tie its opponents up, stymying them from playing the kind of game they wanted to. But in the process, Egypt could not play the way it should have either. It had a calm, collected and composed defensive strategy but very limited attacking options on the other side of the pitch. Its chief attacking protagonist, Mustafa Mohamed, and to a lesser extent Mohamed Sherif and Marwan Hamdi, fired blanks throughout the tournament, so alone were they up front with little help, while Trezeguet, who can create havoc on the left wing, was used sparingly after an injury which limited him to all of 10 minutes of playing time for Aston Villa in 2021. Meanwhile, Salah was consistently sought out, unfairly, to do it all. All that his teammates felt they needed to do was sit back and watch and clap. 

This literally one-for-all and all-for-one approach, with defence always on the minds of the Egyptians, resulted in just two open-field goals allowed in its seven games, however, just four goals were scored. This stop and start way of playing helped lead to Egypt playing in four straight extra time games, something that had never before happened in any AFCON; three went to penalties. Egypt seemed to like this game of penalties. Before the final, it was perfect from the spot and had a hot goalkeeper who could save a few himself. It scored the five spot kicks against Ivory Coast, and the three it needed against Cameroon. But against Senegal, the magic march ended after Egypt failed with two penalties in Sunday’s shootout.

In the end, the best team won the AFCON but the loser didn’t do too bad either. But its not the end of the story. Egypt and Senegal will do battle again in the African World Cup qualifiers. The two-legged home and away series starts 24 March in Cairo. Seeing it would be difficult for either Egypt or Senegal to beat the other three straight times, there is a possibility that the African loss will provide the impetus that Egypt needs to upend Senegal and go to this year’s World Cup in Qatar. On the other hand, Senegal’s African victory could make it even hungrier.

---

*A version of this article appears in print in the 10 February, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.