Record African champions, Egypt find themselves on the verge of missing the Africa Cup of Nations finals for the third time in a row after succumbing to a second successive defeat in the qualifiers.
The Pharaohs slumped to a 1-0 loss to North African rivals, Tunisia, to trail Group G of the qualifiers without a point.
The Carthage Eagles had striker Fakhreddine Ben Youssef to thank after the CS Sfaxien talisman scored the only goal of the match after 14 minutes.
The game that was held at Cairo’s Air Defence Stadium was marked with fans returning to the stands after a long absence due to security reasons. But the Egyptians had nothing to cheer about after they witnessed their team producing one of their worst performances in recent times.
Tunisia started on a high note and had numerous corner kicks in the starting minutes. Ben Youssef proved to be a continuous threat to
the Egyptian defence and after 14 minutes he broke the deadlock by going round defender Ahmed Said ‘Ouka’ to score with only goalkeeper Sherif Ekramy at his mercy.
Egypt should have equalised 10 minutes later, but striker Khaled Kamar missed a clear scoring chance when he fumbled from a one-on-one situation with Tunisia’s keeper Aymen Mathlouthi to beat.
