Sadio Mane netted the winning spot-kick as Senegal beat Egypt 4-2 on penalties to clinch their first-ever Africa Cup of Nations after a 0-0 draw.
Mane had seen a seventh-minute penalty saved by Egypt keeper Gabaski but the Liverpool star held his nerve when he returned in the shootout.
Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy denied Mohanad Lasheen to give Mane the chance to win it in Yaounde’s Olembe Stadium.
Gabaski had made three good saves from Senegal’s Bamba Dieng in extra time.
All four of Egypt’s knockout games at the tournament went the distance, and the North Africans had beaten Ivory Coast and hosts Cameroon on spot-kicks en route to the final.
Gabaski had already saved four penalties at the tournament by the time the match went to a shootout, but on this occasion the 33-year-old was not able to emerge on the winning side.
Egypt were the first to err when centre-back Mohamed Abdelmonem saw his penalty hit the left-hand upright and bounce away – but Gabaski immediately denied Bouna Sarr.
However, Lasheen was then denied and Mane won it with an emphatic finish into the bottom left-hand corner, meaning his Liverpool team-mate Mohamed Salah did not even have the chance to take a penalty, with the Pharaohs captain set to go fifth for his side.
Senegal had previously lost two Nations Cup finals, finishing runners-up in 2002 and 2019 to Cameroon and Algeria respectively.
The two sides will meet again in March in a two-legged play-off for a spot at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
15 Comments
Why Nigeria failed in afcon and will continue to fail going forward
Diverse team and or team that reflects the demographics of the country: Senegal for example, the Wolof tribe makes up majority of Senegal and that reflects the team. Ismailia Sarr, Bouna Sarr, Idrissa Gana Gueye, Pape Gueye and more. And you have other minorities playing on the team. Mandinka tribe: Sadio Mane, Kheikhou Kouyate, Pape Abou Cisse and Aliou Cisse the coach. Fulani: Abdou Diallo, Habib Diallo and Boulaye Dia. The Nigerian team is mostly comprised of Igbo people at least 50% and they aren’t even in the top 5 most populated tribe in Nigeria when there are at least 250 tribes in Nigeria. People here are always complaining about the midfield and play dumb and know who the culprit is. The midfield is to busy dribbling the ball with no end product. I know Pinnick has his hand in recruiting, the coach that comes through has to do what he wants. So its a never ending cycle, I don’t know how long he has been there and has not brought anything good. The recruitment is hypercritical I see subpar Igbo players get recruited easily while non Igbo players have to be like Messi or Ronaldo to even get a mention
Huge egos: Nigerians are as big headed as this music industry. I remember clear as day when in the world cup they had to face Croatia, they were dancing with their phone in hands with headphones in their ears before the match started. Have some sense like Senegal they start celebrating and dancing after they win games. The players are not serious. All these crap interviews talking about I get inspiration from listening to wizkid, fela and etc, like that’s supposed to mean something. The most populated country in Africa and still cant get right, thats a shame
Prioritising mixed/biracial players. All these other teams have native or local goal keepers playing and doing a good job. From Mendy for Senegal, Andre Onana for Cameroon, Bounou for Morocco and the Egyptian goalkeeper. Watching them play, they did extremely well, especially the Egyptian goalkeeper against Morocco and beyond.. He was visibly upset when he had to get off for extra time when he put in that work. Gabalski is a second choice goalkeeper and he got man of the match in which Egypt lost. Okoye just breezes into the starting lineup out of nowhere. People like him because he is tatted and lightskin. People here saying oh he still Nigerian like all biracle players, they want them to play for Nigeria so bad, Nigerians and their low self esteem. Just like the people bleaching their skin in the Nollywood movies. Okoye is not good. I think Nigeria has the most biracial/mixed players in West Africa, they hate themselves so much. Francis Uzoho had a good thing going and the perfect size overall. Now Okoye soon have the most caps out of current goalkeepers
Inconsistent lineup: I remember seeing 6 different goalkeepers called up. I keep saying this, Jamilu Collins is a bad defender, he has been on a relegated German club for more then 3 years and they never been promoted, how is he gonna help
Poor experiences: This Nigerian team got a bunch of relegated players and or players who are not playing in the top 5 leagues. Majority of Cameroon and Senegal players are playing and or starting for Ligue 1 teams. Since Senegal and Cameroon were colonised by france they have an easy access to get top league experience and bring that back to the national team. Andre Onana plays for Ajax that almost went to the champions league final. Mendy won the champions league with Chelsea. What is Okoye going to do? Even African french colonised countries have 2nd or 3rd choice goalkeepers playing in the french league. England prioritises their own people and academy players. Players of countries colonized by England most likely have to start in lower tier in the english league, because english league promote their own, use their academy and its tough to get in. If not that they have to start playing outside the top 5 league. The last time a Nigerian was recruited to play for english league was Taiwo Awoniyi and he left to go play for Union Berlin that could get 4th spot into champions league. Osimhen is playing in the europa league. The national team only got few top tier experience. Shoot, even Ekong cant adapt to the premier league he keeps getting beat and its obvious, watford already has terrible defense. Dennis has adapted to the premier league having 8 goals on a poor team. That is top tier experience, but he joint top in most yellow cards.
Social media recruiting: People here begging players born abroad or who is mixed/biracial players to play for Nigeria. Happened to Dessers and now they are all over Lookman page. When I look at the Senegalese and Cameroonian teams I see almost half the players born abroad, and they came to represent the national team without people begging them. The reason is because they have enough talent on the team even with local based players. The Senegal team for example, Boulaye Dia, Abdou Diallo, Kalidou Koulibaly, Nampalys Mendy, Bouna Sarr and Edouard Mendy.
thunder will fire your generations idoit alfa you will die for the sake of this post
One big lesson, I have learnt in this tournament is that the league one plays in does not correlate with a players output in a tournament.The Egyptian keeper that have kept Egypt in the tournament but was slightly unlucky in the final penalty shootout plays for Zamalek of Egypt. He displayed so much confidence bcos the players and coach believe in him
To this end,,I want to state clearly that Okoye is not SE best keeper. While I will admit that among the keepers we have Okoye plays for a biggest club, that does not make him the best we can offer. If we comb the local league very well we will discover one or two that have the potential to be SE number one then we can polish them up by giving them confidence. You see how Mendy kept Senegal in the game when all hopes were gone. That is what Okoye failed to do. I’m 100 percent if he was in goal for.Egypt today Senegal while have wrapped up the game since first half .Same applies if he was Senegalese Keeper. Let’s not pretend Okoye can safe SE against top opposition not to mention world cup. If SE hope to qualify against Ghana and do well in mutual, the search for a good keeper must start now.
We all forgot the save Okoye made against Egypt. Our problem is people Alex Iwobi who is clueless and does not even know his position Everytime dragging Super Eagles No 10 that he does not know how to play.
Hello bro,you think mendy grew up in Senegal.
Cannot save SE I mean to day
Knock knock Dr Drey. Where are you? Let’s continue our OSS (Ogogoro Shit Show). I have been itching for you. Don’t let me down. Let’s rock this joint. Lolzzzz Lolzzzz. Za Za Za Za.
Yours in Crime
Hon. Dr Igbekun Abo
Lolzzz
The problem with Nigerian Football is that we do not know how to groom our young talents, SECONDLY, we have abandoned school/grassroots development of our football and as such the massive source talent discovering has been completely wiped out. Senegal used to be one of the countries we beat even with our second eleven. The difference between Nigeria and Senegal and other smaller countries today is that when they went about developing their grassroots football we destroyed the structure of school/grassroots development of football and this has affected not just our National teams but it has also affected our local league negatively. Nigeria does not have a National program of grassroots development of football and spots in general.
We do the U13 and U15 national teams was abandoned and has since being restored. I agree that we need to develop talents from the grassroots. However, the Senegalese team that won the AFCON are mostly French youth internationals. The center back pairing were born and raised in France. Their Goalie was raised in France and a host of others in that team. Apart from that most of them play for top flight clubs in the top leagues. Name it Liverpool, Chelsea, Napoli, PSG, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Marseille Etc. A lot of them have been together since 2017. And the coach have been there for over 7 years now. Our top players only plays for Napoli and Leicester and we want to win the WorldCup.
You just bailed it, bro. Senegal isn’t better in grooming players; they are only better in convincing french-born players than our NFF. Again, their colonial connection with France also helped in two ways.
One, it is easier for the citizens of these Francophone countries to migrate to France than Anglophone citizens going to England to settle. These French speaking guys are always and fully allowed to integrate into French society , so much so that can become anything they want as long as they keep by the rules. This has rubbed off on their football in a very positive way. This is the reason you see so many African born players playing for Le Blues. And the kind of talents available now won’t even make France vigorously pursue some percociosly talented African born players to play for them because they are spoilt for choice in those players’ positions already. Senegal, obviously, has been the greatest beneficiary of this development in recent years. We also see how Algeria and Morocco have benefitted as well. More than 50% of the players in the Teranga Lions are either born in France or raised in the system. That’s the major reason their team is so thick now. Just imagine how good that Nigerian team will be now if we have players like Bukayo Saka, Fikayo Tomori, Tammy Abraham, Barkley, Manuel Akanji, Kareem Adeyemi, Musiala, Danjuma Arnault, Dele Ali, Micheal Olise, Eze and the host of others in our team. They will be as good as this Senegalese team, if not better.
And another lesson is, roha was very right for calling our players average players yes roha saw it already.
All lies, which teams are the Burkinabe players playing when they knocked out Tunisia? Aboubacar is playing in Saudi league and scored 8 goals. What happened to all those Serie A, EPL, Bayern Choupo Moting was even benched by a player from Saudi.
Rohr made you think inferior of yourself with such nonsensical argument as which teams our players are playing and your brain has been formatted to think that way.
Greece won EURO2004 with unknown players beating a Portuguese team that had Figo, Deco, Pepe etc. Nigeria won Gold in Atlanta after beating a Brazil team with the original Ronaldo, Bebeto. Argentine team that had Crespo, Veron, Ortega. Common, we won AFCON with a majority home based team in 2013. Rohr NOT ONLY RUINED THE TEAM BUT ALSO DAMAGED THE PSYCHE OF HIS SUPPORTERS. INCREDIBLE
@Rez… Thank you! Gernot Rohr is just and old Donkey who only for 5years+ succeeded in damaging the belief of a large section of Nigeria football fans that we are not good enough… That old bare-knuckle worm just came to stagnate Nigeria’s football culture for 5years… Why has he not gotten a new job to coach. A complete white quack… moongod to some who are say easily inclined to thinking themselves inferior to whites! It was an African young coach that dazed a season Portuguese coach yesterday. The annoying thing is also that Amaju “Mango-Seed-Head” Pinick also has that whiteman inferiority complex. We were at the middle of a tournament he went and manufactured one moongod called Peseiro… Hahaha. The Pinick dude is the most confused NFF chairman we will ever get…
For me this is the best Afcon so far
Full of surprises. Very intriguing! Kudos to all the teams that participated. Kudos to CAF…And RIP to all those who lost their lives during the stampede