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African Nations Cup hosts Egyptian footballers have reached the final of the tournament, where they will meet the Ivory Coast national team, but the Egyptians who lost to the Senegalese footballers will certainly have complaints against the match referee, who did not award a penalty kick to Egypt's goal in the last minute of regular time for an obvious foul.
Senegal 1 - 2 Egypt 37` [0 - 1] Ahmed Hassan (11 m.) 52` [1 - 1] Mamadou Niang 81` [1 - 2] Amr Zaki
In the packed Cairo stadium, hosting 70,000 spectators, the hosts started the match more actively, but halfway through the first half the Senegalese created several dangerous opportunities. In the 34th minute, after a pass from Mido on the left side into the penalty area, Frederic Mendy clearly handled the ball. Ahmed Hassan successfully converted the penalty awarded by the referee for a clear handball, but the referee ordered a retake of the penalty kick. However, A. Hassan did not make a mistake and scored a second time, putting the hosts ahead.
In the second half, the Egyptians started a very dangerous attack - Mohammed Aboutrika's shot hit the crossbar. However, a few minutes later, Mamadou Niang scored a goal with a technical header after a perfect pass from captain Lamine Diatta from the right side.
With ten minutes left in the match, Egypt's national team coach Hassan Shehata decided to substitute the most famous player in the team, a visibly ineffective Mido, with Amr Zaki. However, Mido refused to leave the field, and when he finally did, he started shouting at H. Shehata. Nevertheless, the coach appeared to be right when just a minute after his first shot after a pass from Mohammed Aboutrika from the left side, A. Zaki scored the winning goal with a header.
At the end of the match, the Senegalese footballers pressed hard on their opponents and in the 90th minute it seemed that their persistence paid off when Henri Camara was clearly pulled down in the penalty area, but the referee from Cameroon, Divine Evehe, decided not to award a penalty kick. However, the Senegalese footballers could only blame themselves for the defeat, as in the fourth minute of additional time Issa Ba had the chance to equalize, but his poorly taken penalty shot missed the target.
On Friday, the Egyptian footballers will meet in the final with the Ivory Coast footballers who defeated Nigeria 1-0 in the other semifinal, while on Thursday Nigeria and Senegal will compete for third place.
