Egypt 1 Ghana 0

SUPER-SUB Mohamed Gedo scored the only goal five minutes from time to help Egypt defend their African Nations Cup crown with victory over Ghana.

As the game drifted towards extra-time the Ittihad striker struck his fifth goal of the competition to break the resilience of their opponents.

It handed Hassan Shehata’s men a record seventh title and third in succession in Angola, but they were made to work hard for the success.

Both teams were handed a boost before the start with Wael Gomaa and Emad Moteab passed fit for the Pharaohs and Richard Kingson, Agyeman Opoku and Hans Sarpei all included for the Black Stars.

There was little action to speak of at the start, an early corner from Kwadwo Asamoah catching out goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary, while Egypt’s first halfchance came via a wayward strike over the top from captain Ahmed Hassan.

Although the Egyptians seemed to have more of the ball, their opponents seemed to be creating the better openings, Asamoah’s well-struck 20-yard strike forcingd El- Hadary into a low catch.

Just past the half-hour the isolated Asamoah Gyan, who scored three of his side’s four goals in the competition, showed good trickery down the left, but had no-one to look for in the box.

Seconds from half-time, Hosny Abd Rabo’s searching free-kick from the right almost broke the deadlock, but Hassan and Moteab both missed the headed chance.

After the restart, Agyeman Opoku was lucky to get away with just a yellow card after diving in two-footed on Ahmed Al-Muhammadi.

Gyan coming closest for his side after 51 minutes with a zipping 25-yard free-kick that flew inches over, followed by Ayew firing wide from the edge of the box.

Shehata had seen enough, sending on Mohamed Abdel- Shafy, who scored in the 4-0 win over Algeria, for Sayed Moawad.

When Shehata decided to throw on the tournament’s leading marksman, Gedo, with 20 minutes remaining, the game began to open up and Gyan should have found the target when the ball fell to him on the edge of the box.

Then came the decisive moment of the game with Gedo, cutting into the box from the left, playing a neat one-two with Mohamed Zidan and calmly arrowing the ball beyond Kingston to break Ghanaian hearts.