Egypt makes history with first World Cup knockout round win, defeating Australia on penalties

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Egypt is through to the Round of 16 after defeating Australia in a dramatic penalty shootout on Friday, a historic first World Cup knockout round win for the Pharaohs.

The match finished 1-1 after 120 minutes and Egypt won 4-2 on penalties.

Egypt opened the scoring in the 13th minute through a brilliant header from Emam Ashour, who snuck behind the Australian defense and powerfully directed the ball into the bottom left corner. Aussie keeper Patrick Beach couldn’t do anything about it, such was the quality of the cross from Karim Hafez, with the Aussie defense looking unprepared to deal with the problem.

Ashour couldn’t stop smiling after the goal. Minutes later, the cameras went back to him, and he was still grinning at scoring in a World Cup knockout match.

As the half wore on, the Aussies grew into the game and were arguably the team more in control by the time the whistle blew for halftime.

Egypt tried to change that momentum at the start of the second half when Omar Marmoush came within inches of doubling his team’s lead off the opening kickoff. The Pharaohs did eventually put the ball into the back of a net, but – to their chagrin – it was their own.

Off an Australian set piece, Aiden O’Neill sent a ball into the Egyptian box and it took a deflection off the head of Mohamed Hany and in past Mostafa Shobeir, providing the equalizer for Australia in the 55th minute.

The game settled into a stalemate over the next half hour as both teams had a couple opportunities, but no one really had a clear-cut shot at breaking the deadlock.

The Aussies started breaking the game open a bit with just minutes to play and the Egyptians answered by earning their first corner of the game as the second half entered stoppage time.

The save of the match – and potentially of the tournament – came just two minutes before the end of full time when Egypt’s Ramy Rabia got his head on a cross into the Australian box. It appeared to be goal-bound for a late heartbreaker until Beach soared into the air and got a hand on the ball, hitting it over the bar for a corner kick that came to nothing. Beach’s save kept the game on level terms as extra time loomed.

Egypt had one more chance on the final kick of regular time as the ball fell to Marwan Attia in the middle of the box, but his shot – aimed for the far post – was blocked by an Aussie defender.

That sent the match into 30 extra minutes to settle things. The first 15-minute half of extra time had little to it as both teams seemed unwilling to take too many chances.

But in the second half of extra time, Egypt pushed hard for a winner and had the ball deep in the Socceroos’ half as it tried to avoid penalties. That press allowed the Australians to take advantage of the numbers game and the game opened back up.

But even still, there were no goals to be found and the teams began to prepare for a shootout. With one minute left in extra time, Beach was subbed off in favor of keeper Mathew Ryan, who was seen as the penalty kick specialist.

The Egyptians took the early 1-0 lead after Mahmoud Saber blasted the ball past Ryan following an Aussie miss. Jackson Irvine for Australia calmly put his penalty into the top right corner to give his team hope, and Ramy Rabia restored Egypt’s advantage with a calmly taken strike. Awer Mabil stepped up next for Australia and slotted his penalty home before Mohamed Salah walked up for Egypt.

Salah cheekily went down the middle, with Ryan unable to block, making it 3-2 to Egypt and piling the pressure on Australia. Lucas Herrington was next up for Australia and sent his shot off the bar, opening the door for Egypt to win the game on the next kick.

Hossam Abdelmaguid stepped up for Egypt with the chance to win it. He buried it in the bottom left corner.

Kyle Feldscher, CNN