Egypt Crushes Ivory Coast to Reach ACN Final

Defending champions Egypt crushed Ivory Coast 4-1 in the Africa Cup of Nations semifinals to set up a final showdown against Cameroon on Sunday.

Sunday's final will be a rematch of the teams' opening Group C clash in the competition which the Pharoahs won 4-2.

Egypt went ahead after 12 minutes through Ahmed Fathy, whose shot took a deflection.

Amr Zaky extended the lead in the 62nd minute before Kader Keita reduced the tally for the Ivorians a minute later.

Zaky restored the two-goal cushion in the 67th minute before Mohamed Aboutrika completed the rout in stoppage time when he smashed the ball into the roof of the net from a pass by substitute Mohamed Zidan.

This semifinal was a rematch of the 2006 final and it lived up to its billing with five goals and end-to-end action.

Ivory Coast created the first surprise of the night when they started Arsenal center-half Kolo Toure, who suffered a groin injury against Benin in a group game and was understood to have played his last match of the competition.

Egypt, on the hand, chose not take such a gamble on injury-troubled Mohamed Zidan and dropped him to the bench.

Ivory Coast had the first chance when Salomon Kalou failed to direct his header towards goal after seven minutes. Moments later, Didier Drogba raced into the box, but his final effort with his back to goal was collected easily by goalkeeper Esam El Hadary.

However, Egypt took the lead through Fathy on 12 minutes when he rifled home a shot from the edge of the box which took a slight deflection off a defender to fly past a bewildered Boubacar Barry in the Ivorian goal.

The problems for the Ivory Coast were compounded in the 38th minute when first-choice goalkeeper Barry limped out of the game after he collided with an Egyptian attacker to be replaced by Germany-based Stephan Lobue.

On the stroke of half-time, El Hadary fumbled Drogba's powerful header off a corner only for his defence to clear the danger and maintain Egypt's lead going into the interval.

The Ivorians siezed the attacking initiative at the restart. They would have been rewarded almost immediately but El Hadary made a superb goal-line save from a bullet header from Drogba.

The defending champions made it 2-0 in the 62nd minute when hard working Zaky headed home a corner taken by skipper Ahmed Hassan.

But a minute later Ivory Coast responded in fine style when Keita struck a thunderous drive from outside the box that beat a diving El Hadary.

Egypt came back and Zaky grabbed his second goal in the 67th minute when from the edge of the area he crashed the ball past Lobue.

The big striker would have completed his hat-trick soon after but his shot missed the target narrowly with the goalkeeper again well beaten.

Encouraged by the weaknesses of the second-choice Ivorian goalkeeper, the Egyptians began to shoot from every angle and Lobue was forced to tip an Emad Mohamed shot for a corner.

In stoppage time, Aboutrika completed the destruction of the Elephants when he slotted home from a counter attack initiated by Zidan.

Hosts eliminated 

The earlier match saw a 70th-minute strike by substitute Alain Nkong silence the 45,000 Accra home crowd Thursday and sent Cameroon into Sunday's final of the African Cup of Nations, with a 1-0 win over Ghana.

Cameroon coached by German Otto Pfister will meet the winner of the other semi-final between Ivory Coast and Egypt being played later Thursday in Kumasi.

Cameroon dominated the first half but failed to produce real danger before goal, with their star Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o rather muted.

Ghana, who saw their crossbar rattled by a Geremi free kick in the first half, had more of the action in the second period of play before the decisive goal ushered in a hectic final phase saw Cameroon's Andre Bikey sent off in the 90th minute.