African Cup of Nations

Some of you may have heard about the African Cup of Nations in the news over the past month.  Unfortunately, it was probably due to the violence against the Togo national team on their way to the host country and subsequent pulling out of the tournament.  This has resulted in their being banned from the next two ACN tournaments because the Togo government supposedly influence the decision which in turn has spurred more protests.  But I digress, as that is a story for another time and not the true purpose of this post.

Our beloved Egypt is the two-time defending champions for the tournament.  In fact, it has been brought up how we can dominate this tournament which occurs every two years, but get so unlucky in the World Cup qualifiers.  Well, we advanced out of pool play and into the tournament bracket.  Our semi-final match was against rival Algeria, whom you may recall beat us in November in the World Cup playoff match (see blog from November).  This was the 5th match between the two teams going back to the World Cup qualifier.  Seth went out with Bob & Ana (fellow residents) and Abeer, Maie, & Nawal (fellow local staff/teacher) to The Jungle restaurant to watch the game on the big screen.  The atmosphere was relatively calm.  People were excited and nervous about the match, but did not display a lot of animosity towards the Algerian team.  Of course, beating the living snot out of them 4-0 probably didn't hurt either!  In fact, the Algerian team got 3 red cards and finished the match 3 down vs. the Egyptians!!  Things like that just don't happen - it was a complete meltdown.

SO, that meant we were in the finals against the team from Ghana.  The finals were held Sunday, January 31.  Our friend Nawal invited us over to her house along with Bob, Ana, and Maie (Abeer had to stay home with her kids unfortunately).  That game wasn't quite as exciting as the two teams were evenly matched.  Both had several scoring opportunities, but could not convert.  That is, until the 87th minute when Egypt had a sweet give-and-go on just outside of the box and struck the ball into the far side of the net.  It was beautiful and we went crazy!  Surviving the 3 minutes of extra time seemed like forever, but we did and Egypt WON ITS 3RD CONSECUTIVE AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP!!  That's pretty awesome in today's age of sports competition.

On the way home, we saw all sorts of people outside, honking horns, waving flags, and being generally rowdy/excited.  Kids were sitting on car windows driving down the road with flags waving, people on the sidewalks had flags around their necks like capes - it was pretty cool to see.  Seth & Bob were confronted by Egyptian soccer hooligans shouting out "Egyptian!" and holding up the (correct) finger to indicate they were number one.  Of course, they joined in and high-fived the whole group along the way home. 

Unfortunately, Algeria still gets to go to the World Cup in South Africa this summer, but Egypt reminded them who was the better team with a dominating win and 3-peat championship.  Mabruk Egypt!!