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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/holdenmyrocinante on 2024-01-18 15:28:23.
In honor of the ongoing AFCON tournament, here is the story of Gedo.
Just as a heads up, I’m not a great storyteller, and my writing style is a bit weird. Onto the story.
For people who have watched AFCON 2010, the name ‘Gedo’ might be familiar to you, but few others in the football world have ever even heard that name.
Mohamed Nagy Ismail, more commonly referred to as Gedo, was an Egyptian player from Damanhour, a small city that dates back to Ancient Egypt. His nickname ‘Gedo’, which translates to ‘Grandpa’ in Egyptian arabic, was given to him by his childhood friends because every single time they’d ask him where he was going, he used to answer ‘Gedo’ since he spent a lot of time at his grandfather’s house.
Before the African Cup of Nations in 2010, Gedo was a largely unremarkable player. He was a 25yo striker that played for midtable Alexandrian club Al-Ittihad. He had around 70 career games, and had 9 goals and 1 assist to his name.
When he got called up, he admitted he was surprised about the callup, and only found out about it online.
He made his NT debut only 2 weeks before the start of AFCON, where he played the whole 2nd half in a 1-1 draw against Malawi. In his 2nd game, he came on in the 55th minute against Mali and scored the only goal of the game 10 minutes later, a sign of what’s to come.
The Egyptian side had won the previous 2 AFCONs, beating an Ivory Coast side which featured Drogba and Touré brothers in 2006, and a Cameroon side which featured Eto’o, Rigobert Song, and his nephew (pretty cool tbh) Alex Song in 2008.
Their most notable players were:
- Essam El Haddary, who had 3 AFCONs to his name and was widely regarded as the best African GK in history.
- Ahmed Hassan, an attacking midfielder who played as an 8 for Egypt and was the heartbeat of the team. He was a great passer and a great goalscorer, and he held the record for most international caps for outfield players until recently. He won Player of the Tournament in 2006.
- Abou Trika, a magician on the ball who has 5 African CL medals to his name and scored the winning penalty in 2006 along with the winning goal in 2008. He missed 2010 because of a broken leg.
- Hosny Abd Rabo, a deep lying playmaker who was a set-piece specialist and had a knack for longshots. He won Player of the Tournament in 2008.
- Wael Gomaa, a tough CB that won 6 African CL titles and was Egypt’s best defender. Bleacher Report even placed him as the 10th best African player ever in 2013.
- Mohamed Zidan, a talented striker who had notable stints at Midtjylland and Mainz, where he was beloved by fans. He suffered from attitude issues throughout his career. He scored 5 goals in Midtjylland’s stadium inauguration which, according to Wiki, caused the stadium to be colloquially known as Zidan Arena. He also won Rookie player of the year in his first season for Midtjylland, and left as a club hero. He was also a favourite of Klopps, who, after managing him at Mainz, decided to sign him for Dortmund. Zidan claims Klopp told him he was 100 times more talented than Salah but lacked the dedication required. He assisted the 2008 final winning goal with his outstanding tenacity.
Some other notable players: Emad Meteb, Ahmed Fathi, El Mohamady, Hossam Ghaly.
Game 1: Group Stage - Nigeria
This Nigeria side featured John Obi Mikel, Vincent Enyeama, the GK who played for Lille in the mid-2010s, and Taye Taiwo, the LB who spent most of his career in Marseille and had a short stint at Milan, along with Kanu, Obafemi Martins, and Odemwingie on the bench.
Chinedu Obasi scored an early goal when he cut inside from the right and put the ball into the top left corner. Vincent Enyeama gifted Emad Meteb the equaliser when he came off his line to try and intercept Ahmed Hassan’s pass and completely missed the ball in the 1st half. Ahmed Hassan gave Egypt the lead 10 minutes into the 2nd half with a deflected shot from outside of the box which wrong-footed Enyeama.
With the game at 2-1 in the 72nd minute, Gedo came on for his first official appearance for Egypt. It took him only 15 minutes to score his first official goal with a strong low-drilled effort from outside of the box with his right.
Total minutes: 18
Number of goals: 1
Minutes per goal: 18
Game 2: Group Stage - Mozambique
After an uneventful first half, Egypt took the lead early in the 2nd half when a cross by Ahmed Hassan hit a defender and went in.
Gedo came on in the 68th minute this time. In the 81st minute, Gedo produced a moment of pure genius. I don’t think I can do it justice so here’s the video.
Total minutes: 40
Number of goals: 2
Minutes per goal: 20
Game 3: Group Stage - Benin
This game was pretty uneventful. Egypt scored 2 early goals and the game ended 2-0 with Gedo playing 23 minutes.
Total minutes: 63
Number of goals: 2
Minutes per goal: 32
Game 4: Quarter Finals - Cameroon
This Cameroon side had Eto’o and Alex Song most notably, along with Kameni, the scourge of Barca and Madrid fans in the mid 2010s, Njitab Geremi, who played for Madrid at the turn of the millenium, before moving to Chelsea for 5 years and then Newcastle, and finally, N’Koulou, who played for Monaco, Marseille, Lyon and Torino most notably.
In the middle of the first half, Ahmed Hassan scored an OG to give Cameroon the lead when he tried to clear a corner but ended up heading it in by accident. He made up for it 10 minutes later when he scored a great long shot to make it 1-1.
Gedo came on in the 67th minute, but both sides failed to score for the rest of the 2nd half and the game went to extra time. Gedo took only 70 seconds to give Egypt the lead in ET when he latched onto a bad backpass and produced a good finish.
Ahmed Hassan scored a controversial free kick 3 minutes later when the GK saved the ball, which hit the the post and crossbar at the same time, fell on the line then went out. The ref gave the goal despite replays showing it didn’t go in.
The game ended 3-1.
Total minutes: 116
Number of goals: 3
Minutes per goal: 39
Game 5: Semi Finals - Algeria
This was a very heated game so just to give the full context:
Algeria and Egypt, continental rivals, were put in the same group for World Cup qualifications in 2009. Both teams started the group stage with a draw. In the 2nd game, Algeria beat Egypt 3-1 to put them in the driver’s seat. Both teams won the following 3 games so the finale was set up perfectly. Algeria were top with 13 points, 9 goals scored and 2 conceded. Egypt were in 2nd place with 10 points, 7 goals scored and 4 conceded. To qualify, Egypt needed to win by 3 goals or more. Algeria needed to lose by less than 2 goals. Egypt took the lead very early on and the game stayed 1-0 until the 90th minute when they scored in the 90th minute, which meant both teams had the same amount of points (13), same amount of goals scored and conceded (9, 4), and were tied on h2h (3-3). Of all the African WC qualifiers that took place before and have taken place since, this was the only one which didn’t use away goals as a tiebreak, which meant Egypt didn’t win the group and qualification went to a playoff game. The atmosphere and leadup to that game was very heated, which took place in Sudan in a stadium that was 9k over capacity. Algeria scored a great volley in the 40th minute and Egypt failed to equalise. The best African team, who had won the 2 previous editions of the AFCON, failed to qualify. That was 2 months before the start of AFCON 2010.
Anyways, onto the game.
This Algeria side featured Karim Ziani, Mourad Meghni, Hassan Yebda, Karim Matmour, Rafik Halliche, and Nadir Belhadj.
In the 36th minute, Halliche, who was already on a yellow, took down Emad Meteb in the penalty box which earned him a 2nd yellow and gave Egypt the chance to take the lead. Hosni Abd Rabo converted the penalty.
Gedo was subbed in in the 59th minute. In the 64th minute, Mohamed Zidan cut inside and scored a great goal, similar to Chinedu Obasi’s goal in the 1st game.
Nadir Belhadj got sent off in the 70th minute with a terrible two-footer, bringing Algeria down to 9 men. Mohamed Abdelshafi scored from a Zidan pass in the 81st minute.
Fawzi Chaouchi, the Algerian GK who frankly should’ve been sent off for his dreadful haircut, earned a 2nd yellow when he violently kicked Gedo right after the ref had wrongly whistled for offside.
Gedo scored a…
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