AFCON 2025: Controversy Reigns As Mo Salah's Penalty Give Egypt The Win Over South Africa

After the first round of group stage matches at the ongoing AFCON tournament in Morocco, we finally saw the first real controversy at the tournament in Egypt’s 1-0 win over South Africa at the Stade Adrar in Agadir as a Mohamed Salah penalty was enough to secure the win.

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Both teams came into this game knowing that a victory would see them advance to the knockout stages of the tournament, hence, the opening moments of the game were a rather tense and cagey affair with no clear cut chance and it took 22 minutes for the first shot of the game to come.

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It came in the form of a free-kick for Egypt on the edge of the penalty area, that Manchester City forward Omar Marmoush stepped up to take, but his effort went agonisingly wide of the left-post but the Bafana Bafana were not going to be outdone and they started to grow into the game.

Hence, they had the first shot on target moments later but Lyle Foster was unable to generate enough power on his shot to bother Mohamed El Shenawy and the goalkeeper made a comfortable save and just when it looked like the first half would end in a draw, Egypt took the lead.

It came courtesy of a penalty after a bad foul by Khuliso Mudau and Salah was on hand to give the Pharaohs the lead, taking on the responsibility of the spot kick and he managed to fire home the opener as he rifled his penalty down the centre of the goal for the only goal of the game.

After not seeing much drama during the opening minutes of the first half, there was more drama before the half time break As Egypt were reduced to 10-men when Mohamed Hany was shown a second yellow card for a bad foul, giving the opponent the advantage heading into the second half.

Following the restart there was very little goal scoring opportunities in the opening 25 minutes with both sides struggling to craft any clearcut opportunities but South Africa had more of the ball due to their numerical advantage but were ultimately limited to efforts from distance and no clear cut chances.

Just like we saw in the first half, it was towards the end of the game that the actions started to show as Bafana Bafana tried to make their advantage count and at least get a draw from this encounter against an opponent that was intent on defending their lead even with a man short.

The Bafana Bafana saw their best opportunity to draw level go to waste when Foster found Aubrey Modiba in the centre of the penalty area, but he was unable to put the ball either side of El Shenawy but they didn’t give up, yet were unable to find an equaliser.

They also had a golden opportunity to finally get that much needed goal in additional time as they protested for a hand ball in the box, but the referee failed to award it after consulting with the VAR and they’re now left with three points after two games while Egypt secured their progression into the knockout stage.

Furthermore, they ended Bafana Bafana’s 12-game unbeaten run and will go into third game in the group with confidence as even a point should be enough to secure their status as group winners when they face Angola next in their final group game on Monday next week.

Read Also: “We Played A Good Game But In The End We Even Risked Losing It”

For South Africa, they will head into their third game of the group stage knowing that destiny is in their own hands against Zimbabwe but will be feeling hard done by a spot kick and being denied a penalty of their own.

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