Egypt has a lot of success in football

Egypt has been in the foreground of African football recently. The country has been named as host of the next African Cup of Nations (men´s edition), since Cameroon was stripped off the competition due to delays in preparation.

Egyptian Mohamed Salah has also been named African footballer of the year by CAF. South Africa´s Thembi Kgatlana was awarded the prize amongst women.

Nigeria are champions and Cameroon loses event

A lot has happened in African football recently. On Saturday Nigeria became champions in the Women´s African Cup of Nations by beating South Africa on penalties in the final. Both nations are through to the World cup next year together with Cameroon who grabbed the last World cup spot by finishing third after a 4-2-win against Mali.

When it comes to the men´s edition of the competition, Cameroon have been stripped of hosting the event. This is because of delays in the preparation for the competition. According to BBC, Morocco, South Africa and Egypt are now candidates to host the tournament next year.

Legendary African goalkeepers

When thinking about footballers from Africa, it´s often the offensive qualities that comes to mind. Players like George Weah, Samuel Eto´o, Didier Drogba and Mohamed Salah have all given rise to that picture of the continent. But Africa has also produced some great goalkeepers that should be mentioned.

Arthur Wharton

Born in Accra in Ghana in 1865, the goalkeeper Arthur Wharton was to become the first black professional footballer in the UK. Not only that, this very talented athete also set a record in cycling and became the fastest man in Britain.

The Cameroonian goalkeeper factory

In the modern era, Cameroon has undoubtedly produced most of the high class goalkeepers in Africa. One such figure is Thomas N´kono who cotnributed to Cameroon´s quarter final place in the World cup 1990 and had a notable career with Espanyol in Spain. Actually, Gianluigi Buffon was very much inspired to become a goalkeeper after watching Nkono in the World cup. Other notable keepers from Cameroon include Joseph-Antoine Bell, Jacques Songo´o and Carlos Kameni.

Essam El Hadary

At 45 years old, the Egyptian became the oldest World cup player in history in 2018. He is a legend in his home country and has won the Africa cup of nations four times and the African champions league four times.

Do you know anyone that should be mentioned in this list?

One of the most famous women from antiquity

The city Alexandria in northern Egypt was once home to the famous library where a lot of the known knowledge of the mediterranean world was gathered. This was really the centre for knowledge and science in the ancient world. Not many women are famous from this period, but one such celebrity is the philosopher and mathematician Hypatia.

The documentary below talks both about the scientific advancements in Alexandria, the melting pot that ancient Alexandria was and about who Hypatia really was.

The World Cup Is Over

The world cup is over for this time. The african teams unfortunately did not perform so well in this tournament. Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Nigeria were all eliminated in the group stage.

Senegal came closest, but were eliminated due to the fact that Japan had fewer cards. Senegal is the first team in history to be eliminated because of the fair play rule.

Egypt´s poor performances at the World cup is a mystery. The national team has won the African cup of nations a record seven times. In club competions, the Egyptian teams Al Ahly and Zamalek have won most titles (eight for Al Ahly and five for Zamalek) in the African Champions league. Despite this success on continental level, the national team have only appeared in three World cups and didn´t qualify for the second round in the 2018 edition.

But we shouldn´t forget that many players in the winning French team have African backgrounds. Lets name those in the staring eleven: The central defender Samuel Umtiti was born in Cameroon, midfielder Paul Pogba´s parents are from Guinea, midfielder Ngolo Kanté has parents from Mali, Kylian Mbappé has a father from Cameroon and a mother from Algeria and Blaise Matuidi has an Angolan father and a mother from D.R. Congo.