Senegal’s victory, with Mané hitting the
winning spot-kick, was a repeat of the African Cup of Nations final last month
when Mané clinched a first major title for his country by also scoring the
winning penalty in a shootout against the Egyptians.
There was more pain for Salah, who missed
Egypt’s first penalty in this shootout and again had to watch as Mané
celebrated a major victory.
The teams missed the first four penalties
of the shootout. Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly hit the crossbar with the
first penalty. But Salah then blasted his penalty over the crossbar. Egypt
missed three of its four penalties.
Ultimately, Mané was given the chance to
seal a place at the World Cup in Qatar with Senegal’s fifth penalty. He looked
at the referee, gave him a thumbs-up and then smashed it down the middle and
celebrated in front of his home fans.
The game finished 1-0 for Senegal after
extra time thanks to a fourth-minute own goal by Egypt’s Hamdi Fathi. That left
it 1-1 on aggregate after Egypt’s narrow first-leg victory in Cairo on Friday
It’s just the third time Senegal has
qualified for the World Cup and the first time it has reached back-to-back
tournaments after also making it to Russia in 2018. Before that, Senegal’s only
other appearance was in 2002, when it surprised everyone to reach the
quarterfinals on its World Cup debut.
Ghana earlier became the first team from
Africa to qualify for this year’s World Cup with a 1-1 draw in Nigeria in the
second leg of their tie to advance on away goals.
Thomas Partey scored the decisive goal for
Ghana in the 10th minute in Abuja. William Troost-Ekong equalized for Nigeria
with a penalty in the 22nd but Nigeria couldn’t use its home advantage to get a
winner.
The teams drew 0-0 in Ghana in the first
leg.
The result soothed the pain of a terrible
African Cup of Nations campaign for Ghana, when the four-time African champion
was eliminated in the group stage in Cameroon in January.
It also gave new coach and former Ghana
player Otto Addo immediate success. He was brought in to lead the team when
Milovan Rajevac was fired after that African Cup failure.
Ghana will return to the World Cup after
missing out on the 2018 tournament. -AP