Egypt wins African Nations Cup

Egypt won the African Nations Cup, for a record fifth time yesterday evening. Cairo celebrated in style. After a 120 minutes thriller, Egypt had the best luck in the penalty shootout. The Hero of the game was the goalkeeper al Hadary, who made a fenomenal save during the match, and took two penalties in the shootout. Ahmed Hassan managed to score the first penalty in the shootout after missing one very controversial penalty during the match. Muhammed Abu Treika was another hero, putting the last penalty in the net.

Egypt has really played good during the whole tournament. For once they played as a team, not an Egyptian trademark in the past. They usually play like they are the equivalent to Brazil of the African continent, without focusing on the defence, and everybody wanting to shine on their own. This time, it was the team, all players in the squad who achieved this remarkable result.

The row between Mido and coach Hassan Shehata, didn´t change the focus of the players on winning the cup in the end, and it´s really a tribute ti Hassan Shehata that the one who tried to cool things down was Hossam Hassan, who besides proving me utterly wrong in still displaying excellent skills on the pitch, actually being the elder statesman that Coach Shehata was talking about before the tournament. It must be the best of way of ending a fantastic career. Thanks for everything Hossam!

It´s a pitty that the Pharaos didn´t make it to Germany this comming summer, but they will get a new chance in 2010. Our hopes for 2006 is with the Ivory coast who has a real good opportunity of making a good result in Germany. Good luck!

Pharaos wins the African Nations Cup