On penalties, Senegal is the champion of the African Nations at the expense of Egypt
For the first time in its history, Senegal won the 33rd African Cup of Nations after defeating Egypt on penalties in the final match of the tournament held in Cameroon.
Senegal won the African Nations Cup in Cameroon for the first time in its history, after winning 4/2 on penalties over Egypt on Sunday evening (6 February 2022) in the final match of the continental competition.
Sadio Mane, who missed a penalty kick in the seventh minute, scored the decisive penalty kick after Mohamed Abdel Moneim and Muhannad Lashin missed two penalties for Egypt.
Senegal was playing its third final after 2002 and 2019, and the third was constant. As for the Egyptian team, it was seeking to enhance its record number of titles (7 times), but luck did not smile at it in the penalty shootout.
The confrontation was the first of three matches between the two teams, as they will meet again in the home and away matches on March 24 and 29, in the last round of the African qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The Egyptian team played the match in the absence of its Portuguese coach, Carlos Queiroz, who was suspended due to his expulsion in the previous match against Cameroon in the semi-finals, and goalkeeper Mohamed El-Shennawy, defender Ahmed Hegazy, and Akram Tawfiq, as well as the suspended Omar Kamal, was also absent due to injury.
The two teams were unable to score over 120 minutes after their players raced to waste all the opportunities that came to them during the four games, especially the Senegalese team, who missed a penalty kick in the fifth minute through Sadio Mane, to resort to the penalty shootout, which finally smiled for the Senegalese team.
Kalidou Coulibaly, Abdo Diallo, Pampa Diang and Mane scored, while Bona Sarr missed. As for the Egyptian team, Zizou and Marwan Hamdi scored for him, while Mohamed Abdel Moneim and Muhannad Lashin missed.
Egypt became the first team in the history of African nations to play overtime in 4 consecutive matches in the playoffs in one version of the competition, after playing against Cote d'Ivoire, Morocco, Cameroon, and then Senegal.
Goalkeeper Abu Jabal was named man of the match, while Senegalese goalkeeper Mendy won the best goalkeeper in the tournament, and his colleague Sadio Mane won the title of best player, while the tournament's top scorer was awarded to Vincent Aboubakar, the Cameroonian striker.
In addition to winning the champion African Footballnship cup, the Senegalese football team received five million dollars, which is the value of the financial prize for the winner of the thirty-third African Cup of Nations, which was unveiled on Sunday in Cameroon.
The Confederation of (CAF) had previously announced the raising of the financial prizes for the tournament in this edition.
The winner of the title receives five million dollars, an increase of 500 thousand dollars over what was received by the champion of the previous edition, and the runner-up gets 2.5 million dollars.
Each of the teams that reached the semi-finals received $2.2 million, an increase of $200,000 over what their counterpart received in the last edition hosted by Egypt in 2019.
Each of the teams that reached the quarter-finals received $1.175 million, an increase of $175,000 over what their counterpart received in the previous edition.