Sadio Mane scored the winning spot-kick as Senegal claimed a first ever Africa Cup of Nations title with a 4-2 penalty shootout victory over seven-times winners Egypt following a 0-0 draw.
Mane had missed an early penalty in the game but stepped up to make history for the west African nation, and banish the memories of their 2019 failure when they lost the final to Algeria.
Goalkeeper Edouard Mendy saved from Mohanad Lasheen in the shootout to allow Mane the chance to seal the win and gain just reward for Senegal, who had been by far the better side in the final but spurned numerous opportunities to win the game.
The Teranga Lions were awarded a clean penalty in the first half after just seven minutes but Liverpool star Sadio Mane’s effort was saved by Gabarski in the Egyptian goal.
The Lions roared throughout the opening exchanges of the match and kept probing in search of the first goal of the match.
Senegal fluffed the chance for an early lead when Mohamed Abdelmonem’s late, reckless challenge brought down left back Saliou Ciss.
Salah had a lengthy conversation with Gabaski before Mane stepped up to take the spot-kick. The latter went for power straight down the middle of the goal but his effort was saved, the 10th penalty miss in the tournament.
Ismaila Sarr’s trickery down the right wing caused more early problems for Egypt and his low cross was narrowly missed by Mane at the back post on two occasions.
Ismaila Sarr whipped in a pinpoint cross into the goal area but Mane was a bit late and failed to connect to the ball as he missed by a whisker for the ball to role out of play.
Mane, in few minutes later missed another good chance inside the box when he completely miscued the ball.
Egypt barely threatened the Senegalese goal in the first half except for Mohamed Salah’s wonderful effort that was saved by Chelsea goalkeeper Édouard Mendy.
Egypt produced just a flash of brilliance in a game which was overly dominated by the West African country.
Substitute, Aliu Dieng nearly broke the deadlock of the match but the Egyptian goalkeeper rose to the occasion again to deny the Teranga Lions.
After 120 minutes of the match, both teams could not be separated and had to be separated by the sudden death, penalty shootout.
Kalidou Koulibaly took the first kick and scored with Zizo also scoring for Egypt.
The Egyptian then missed two spot kick with their second kick hitting the post with Mendy saving the fourth kick – Bounar Sarr of FC Bayern München missed his kick as well.
Then came the moment when Mane, who had missed from the spot earlier had the opportunity to right the wrong and perfectly slotted the ball into the back of the net to win the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations tournament hosted in Cameroon for Senegal who lift their first trophy ever.
