A goal from Mohamed Aboutreika gave the Pharaohs their second consecutive Cup of Nations Final victory against Cameroon in Accra.
The Egyptians deservedly took the trophy after a tight but not unentertaining Final but the quality of Aboutreika's finish could not detract from the magnitude of the error by Cameroon defender Rigobert Song that led to the goal.
Egypt had already come closest to opening the deadlock when Hosny Abd Rabo struck the woodwork after an hour when Song failed to clear a simple through ball and was muscled out of possession by substitute Mohamed Zidan, whose persistence was rewarded when his toe-poke pass was calmly stroked past Carlos Kameni in the Cameroon goal by Mohamed Aboutreika for his fourth goal of the tournament.
Cameroon played poorly throughout the game, with Samuel Eto'o finishing the game a virtual passenger after seeming to pick up a hamstring injury after the Indomitable Lions had already made their three permitted substitutions.
Winning team boss Hassan Shehata - now only the second coach to win the tournament twice in succession - praised his side's performance in the face of adversity; "Ghana was always going to be difficult with so many strong teams, but we did well.
"We tried to take the game with good football, for Egypt and the fans and it proved enough for us to win."
Egypt's triumph comes as a variety of records are broken. With 99 goals, the 2008 Cup of Nations has the highest tally in the competition's history; Egypt have now won the tournament a record six times and Samuel Eto'o broke Laurent Pokou's all-time scoring record in Africa's foremost international competition.
It is also the first time the Cup of Nations has been won by a side other than the hosts since Cameroon triumphed in Mali in 2002.
Egypt's success can be put down to their consistency as they were the only team to show form and confidence in all their important matches; their only failure to win was in their final group game against Zambia but their draw was enough to seal top spot in the Group C table.
And their 4-1 thrashing of tournament favourites Ivory Coast in the semi-final was arguably the stand-out performance of the whole tournament. The victory should go some way to encourage other north African teams that victory in tournaments held in sub-Saharan Africa are possible - ten years after the Egyptians won in Burkina Faso.
Yesterday, hosts Ghana took third place with an eventful 4-2 win over Ivory Coast in Kumasi. Sulley Ali Muntari, Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, Junior Agogo and Haminu Dramani scored for the Black Stars, with Werder Bremen's promising striker Boubacar Sanogo bagging both of the Ivorians' goals.
The next Cup of Nations will be held in Angola in January-February of 2010, with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea co-hosting the 2012 tournament. African football, though, will now start to turn to the race to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa - the first time the world's biggest single-sport event will be held on the continent.
