Cameroon dashed Ghana's African Nations Cup title dreams with a 1-0 semi-final win on Thursday to set up a rematch with their opening round conquerors Egypt in Sunday's final. Defending champions Egypt, seeking their sixth African crown, maintained their impressive run against expectations after struggling to qualify to crush competition favourites Ivory Coast 4-1.
That lop-sided semi-final in Kumasi was a rematch of the 2006 final decided on penalties but this meeting two years on was a far more clear cut affair. Ahmed Fathy started the rout with Amr Zaky extendeding the champions' lead in the 62nd minute before Kader Keita reduced the tally for the Ivorians a minute later.
Zaky restored Egypt's two-goal cushion in the 67th minute with Mohamed Aboutrika completing the unscripted demolition in stoppage time. Egypt's keeper Essam El Hadry, who produced a series of fine saves, said: "I'm the happiest man in the world.
"We are delighted with the performance and the result," added Egypt assistant coach Shawki Gharib. "This was a repeat of our 2006 final and on Sunday we will have another repeat against Cameroon, who we beat in our group." The Ivorians coach Gerard Gili insisted the first-half loss of first-choice goalkeeper Boubacar Barry through injury did not adversely affect the fortunes of his team.
"The exit of my goalkeeper was not the reason we lost, his absence only meant I lost a chance to make another substitution. We simply had an off day. We did not expect to lose by such a wide margin but the Egyptians played well and pulled it off."
The last back-to-back winners of the trophy were Cameroon who earlier gate-crashed Ghana's party when substitute Alan Nkong, playing in only his second international, produced the only goal of a tense sometimes scrappy semi-final in Accra. The midfielder came on in the second half and minutes later fired past keeper Richard Kingson to keep Cameroon on course for a record-equalling fifth title.