By Akinwale Kasali
After 120 minutes of pulsating and scintillating performance, ending in stalemate, it took penalties to separate the Teranga Lions of Senegal and the Pharaohs of Egypt in the crunchy 33rd African Cup of Nations final.
Misses from Mohammed Abdelmonem and Mostapha Lasheen in the tense shoot-out, gave advantage to the Senegalese mercurial player, Sadio Mane, who was able to rectify his earlier penalty miss in the seventh minute of the match to slot home the decisive penalty and win the trophy for Senegal.
Coach Aliou Cisse could not hold back. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He was able to put smiles on the faces of over 16.5 Million Senegalese at home, who had been dreaming of winning the coveted AFCON trophy.
Senegal and Coach Cisse were third time lucky. Having lost the 2002 AFCON tournament in Mali to the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon on penalties, followed by its loss to the Desert Warriors of Algeria in the 2019 AFCON tournament, they knew that winning the trophy was the only things that could put smiles on the faces of Senegalese, and the players did not disappoint their fans.
Egyptian Captain and teammate of Mane, Mohammed Salah wept uncontrollably as Mane slot home the decider spot kick, failing to increase the AFCON trophy haul of Egypt to Eight.
Salah was a member of the Egyptian team that lost the 2017 AFCON tournament to Cameroon in Equatorial Guinea. With the loss, Salah has lost two AFCON finals.
In the third place match played on Saturday, host, Cameroon pulled off a surprise that will go down in the history of AFCON tournament, coming from 3-0 down to 3-3 forcing the game into penalties.
The Stallions of Burkina Faso had gone 3-0 up courtesy of goals from Steven Yago, own goal by Andre Onana and a sublime header from Djibril Ouattara.
The introduction of Vincent Aboubakar, Momou Ngalemeu and Karl Toko Ekambi changed the dynamics of the game.
With 20 minutes to end of the game, the historic comeback started.
Steven Bahoken pulled a goal back, before Francis Ouedraogo howler gave Aboubakar the opportunity to score a brace in quick succession forcing the game into penalties where the Cameroonians eventually won 5-3 on penalties.
Aboubakar ended the tournament with Eight goals, tallying Bennie Mc Carthy of South Africa and Hossam Hassan of Egypt records in 1996 and 1998 AFCON tournaments respectively.
He won the Golden Boot award; Sadio Mane was declared the Most Valuable player, while Eduardo Mendy was announced the Goalkeeper of the tournament.
Egypt still has an herculean task ahead. It will face Senegal in the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup final African Qualification Playoffs between March 24-29 2022 in the double header to ascertain the five teams representing Africa.
