The Egyptian national team, one of the candidates to win the title, suffered its first loss in the group stage of the African Nations Cup in 18 years, by falling to its Nigerian counterpart 0-1 on Tuesday in Garoua, Cameroon, in the opening of the fourth group competitions.
Leicester City’s English striker, Kelechi Ihyanacho, scored the game’s only goal when he got the ball inside the area, controlled it and shot it with his left on the fly to hug the net in the 30th minute.
The last loss of the Egyptian team in the first round dates back to the 2004 edition in Tunisia, when it fell 1-2 to its Algerian counterpart. Since that defeat, Egypt has not lost in the group stage, before today’s match.
The “Pharaohs” holds the record with seven titles, the last of which was in 2010 in Angola, when they were crowned for the third time in a row (2006 in Egypt and 2008 in Ghana).
“Our performance in the first half was very poor, that’s the truth. We were not on the pitch. We started playing in the second half…There was no reason for this failure and the loss once morest Nigeria,” said Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz.
“We lost this match and there are 6 points we must collect in the next two matches once morest Sudan and Guinea Bissau to qualify for the next round,” he added.
The Nigerian team was the best and most dangerous in the goal of Mohamed El-Shennawy thanks to the movements of Ihyanacho and annoying winger Moses Simon. On the other hand, the Egyptian team presented a disappointing performance characterized by very slow and poor passing, and its star Mohamed Salah was isolated in the front line and had one chance when he received the ball from substitute Ahmed Sayed “Zizou”, but he shot it weak towards goalkeeper Madoka Okoi (70).
The Egyptian team was eliminated from the final price in the last edition, which was hosted in 2019 by South Africa.
