Egypt Crowned African Champions For The Third Time in a Roll

Pin It Now! The orange 27th African Nations’ Cup tournament finally came to an end on Sunday 31st January, 2010 at the November 11 stadium in Luanda, Angola. The closing ceremony was capped with the award of this year’s trophy to the Pharaohs for keeps after they won it for 3 consecutive times.
Apart from winning the tournament for 3 times in a roll (2006, 2008 and 2010), Egypt has also won the tournament for a record 7 times making them the country that has won it for the highest number of times. The closest to them are Cameroon and Ghana (four times each). The Pharaohs have also set a record 19 straight unbeaten competition matches. This year’s edition has come and gone but memories linger on as it was filled with several new records. One of the new records set was by the Egyptian captain Ahmed Hassan was became the only player to have won 4 editions of the tournament (1998, 2006, 2008 and 2010). The 30 year old captain also had his 170th cap for his nation in their match against Cameroon at the quarter final stage, thus becoming world’s third most capped player in history (Saudi goal keeper Mohammed al-Deayea holds a record of 180 caps to be world’s number one).
Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon set a new record of 18 goals to break his own record (16 goals set in Ghana 2008), having initially broken Ivorian Laurent Pokou’s 14 goals record to become the all time highest goal scorer of the championship. Rigobert Song also of Cameroon became the player that has attended the highest number of tournaments after appearing for the 8th time.
The Super Eagles of Nigeria won the bronze medal for the 7th time to become the country with the highest Bronze medals in the history of the tournament. Nigeria has also won the championship twice (1980 and 1994).
The 60 year old Egyptian coach, Hassan Shehata (‘The Master’) is the only coach to have won the trophy for 3 consecutive times making him a veteran in this championship. Hassan Shehata has won several laurels for his country, his club sides and the teams he managed as a coach: he is truly a record setting coach. I think his second name should be ‘Football’. He was nick named ‘The Master’ because of his enviable records in the field of soccer. The next edition is full of expectation as the world waits to see old records broken and new one created.

Egypt Crowned African Champions For The Third Time in a Roll