…Sets up Quarterfinal against winner of Ivory Coast versus Burkina Faso at Agadir on January 10.
The Pharaohs of Egypt on Monday night in Agadir shoed class stopping a resilient Cheetahs of Benin Republic from appearing in their second ever quarterfinal in six appearances at AFCON with a 3-1 win in the round of 16 games at extra time.
Football observers doubted if Benin would stretch the seven times African champions until the 69th minute when Mohammed Salah found Mohammed Hany who played back his received pass for 27 year old Al Ahly player Marwan Attia to strike a screamer from the penalty arch whistling through a cluster of legs into goal.
Resilient and stubborn Benin players planned a shocker for Egypt where in the 83rd minute Jodel Oluwafemi Doussou who plays professional in Luxemburg from the right flank beat 37 year old Al Ahly Goalkeeper in a montage goal that could be the greatest goal of AFCON 2025. Score Board read 1-1 and tension became high.
Marwan Attia again supplied a lob that Yasser Ibrahim headed in for goal number 2 to Egypt in the 97th minute (7 minutes of extra time) and wonder boy Liverpool Captain and Egyptian Captain Mohammed Salah who had been forced by the Cheetahs of Benin to play virtually every position on the pitch put the icing of victory on the cake with the 3rd goal in the 120+4 minutes of play before Ref Pierre Atcho of Gabon blew off the match at 120+5th minute.
Egypt now pursues a dream of winning the title for the 8th time as the team ventures to scale the hurdle of the winner between Elephants of Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso in the quarterfinals on 10th January in Agadir.
To get into the round of 16 games, the Cheetahs of Benin won only a match beating Botswana by a lone goal; lost 0-1 to DR Congo and lost 0-3 to Senegal whereas Pharaohs of Egypt won two games beating Zimbabwe 2-1; beat South Africa by a lone goal and drew 0-0 with Angola at the group games.
Both Egypt and Benin met three times with Egypt winning all matches that witnessed 13 goals 11 of which Egypt scored. Although Egypt won the only time they met in group C of the 2010 AFCON of 20th January 2-0 Benin was 3rd in that group where Nigeria was 2nd and Mozambique came 4th. Benin and Mozambique did not win any match in that group. Egypt highest defeat of Benin was 5-1 in an international friendly played on 19th November 2008.
Benin ranked 92 in the world is appearing at AFCON finals for the 5th time and her best performance was a quarterfinal in 2019. Egypt are the most decorated national team on the continent winning AFCON titles seven times in 1957, 1959, 1986, 1998, 2006, 2008 and 2010.
Nigeria will face Mozambique at 8pm tonight in the next round of 16 games.
Last round of the 16 matches will be played tomorrow Tuesday when Algeria battles DR Congo at 5pm and Ivory Coast will trade tackles against fellow West Africans Burkina Faso at 8pm.
A battle of two Eagles will be seen in the first quarterfinal on Friday 9th January at 5pm when Eagles of Mali faces the Teranga Lions of Senegal. At 9pm that night Cameroon will tackle hosts Morocco in the 2nd quarterfinal.
Eniola Olatunji
