Algeria/Egypt: Desert Foxes Beat Pharaohs to Reach World Cup

18 November 2009
allAfrica.com

Algeria defeated Africa's football champions, Egypt, 1-0 today to take Africa's sixth place in the 2010 World cup.

Amid fears of violence in Omdurman, where the two bitter rivals faced one another in a playoff, the Sudanese government reportedly mobilized 15,000 extra security forces to control the fans.

There were incidents of violence both in Egypt and Algeria over the match last weekend, in which Egypt came from behind to equalize its points and goal difference with Algeria and forced the playoff.

Playing in the Al-Merreikh Stadium in Omdurman, Sudan, on Wednesday evening, Algeria's Antar Yahia scored his side's winning goal in the 39th minute of the match.

Blogging for the BBC, James Copnall told readers that Algeria's fans "went ballistic... setting off flares and competing with one another for who could wave the national flag the hardest. The Egyptian end, by contrast, went very, very quiet."

Thousands of fans had travelled to Khartoum from Algeria and Egypt to watch the playoff.

Algeria joins Cameroon and Nigeria, who qualified on Saturday, and Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, who qualified earlier, for the World Cup in South Africa. As the host nation, South Africa automatically gets into the tournament.

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