Senegal 0-0 Egypt (Senegal win 4-2 on penalties)
OLEMBE STADIUM — Decades worth of neuroses boiled down into 15 minutes and as many penalty kicks as it would take Senegal, a squad on the edge of establishing a permanent reputation as glorious failures with the emphasis on the second word. Egypt the penalty kings with six consecutive shootout wins and enough grit to keep the roads of Lapland free of ice. It could only go one way; until it went the other.
It is impossible to overstate the mental resilience to fight an opponent and your own demons with one sword. Sadio Mane, who missed his first penalty three minutes into a long, tortuous night and somehow had the resolve to come back for more and feel better for the experience. Balls, guts, heart – pick any other body part you like to describe the sheer majesty of that confidence and gumption.
The stadium only really began to believe after Mohamed Abdelmonem missed Egypt’s second penalty, striking the inside of the left-hand post. Senegal were the neutral’s favourites, but nobody considered that they might have the strength. Nobody thought that Egypt might actually be fallible.
Three minutes later, they saw Mane make the slow walk that felt like a marathon. Over and over, the stadium chanted his surname as if welcoming their favourite gladiator into the arena. One more kick and he was on the floor, covered by teammates and with most of this continent shouting in his favour.
For long periods, this was a desperate final to watch. Egypt will argue that football is a broad church and its competitions are decided by who remains unbeaten when the music stops. That’s partly true: this is not ice dancing and there are no marks awarded for aesthetic wonder. But a) that is how you win over a neutral audience, and b) there is a difference between defensiveness and rampant shithousery.
Anyone who has paid any attention to this tournament knows the drill by now. Egypt aim for the ball to be in play for as short a time as possible – 40 minutes and 26 seconds in normal time here. They slow down the game through a hundred mini delays that in isolation don’t seem a huge deal but over the course of a match cause you to wince and sigh. They kick the ball away not quite far enough to cause trouble, argue with the referee for not quite long enough to be accused of dissent.
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For this strategy to work, they also manage to change the behaviour of their opponents, a psychological power that seems to work best on the biggest stage. For most of the night Senegal played the wrong passes. They got too close to players in red and allowed them to win free kicks. They wasted every set-piece that Egypt’s fouls afforded them. If Egypt have one talent, it is bringing every different type of team down to their level. They have made that an artform.
But then art finds a way to escape its shackles and sport finds a way to reward us for our patience and our faith. Senegal were not perfect, but they were the one team that tried to win the final and the one team that deserved to. They have waited their entire history to lift this trophy; Africa’s highest-ranked team has now proven itself as its best team.
Senegal arrived in Cameroon needing to make things right. They were its highest-placed team with nothing to show for it bar great potential and many more regrets. They will leave it on top of the continent, having stared straight in the face of their greatest weakness and their toughest opponent and fought their way past both.
Their next challenge is to maintain this advantage over Egypt, with a two-legged World Cup playoff to come in Dakar and Cairo next month. If Carlos Queiroz is still in position, he will be determined to re-establish a position of dominance and you would not bet against them gaining revenge.
But all that is for another time, when the last cries of celebration have ceased. It will take a while. Five minutes after he had celebrated with his teammates, Mane embarked on an impromptu dash along the athletics track, wrapped in a Senegal flag. He leaped and danced as if he had won Olympic gold. The crowd treated him as king of their world.
This is a team sport and Mane is emphatically a team player. But within Senegal’s overdue triumph, there is a personal story too: the humble superstar, the man with the weight of a nation on his shoulders, the penalty failure who became the penalty master, the leader of Africa’s new great football nation.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/1RmT3qt
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