Mo Salah Sits Out as Egypt Beat Nigeria in Battle of AFCON Giants

Egypt beat Nigeria 2-1 on Tuesday in their final warm-up match before the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

Mo Salah was not included in the Egypt squad for the match in Cairo, but the Liverpool legend is still expected to captain his country in their AFCON opener against Zimbabwe in Agadir on Monday.

Salah might be a little rusty as he has not started any of Liverpool’s last five games amid a breakdown in his relationship with manager Arne Slot. Former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp once said of Salah that he was not “easy to manage”.

Slot appears to be finding that out for himself, but Salah is seemingly only difficult to manage when he is not starting regularly. Although he did not feature on Tuesday, he is expected to be the first name on Hossam Hassan’s teamsheet at AFCON 2025.

Mo Salah set for fifth AFCON

This winter’s tournament will be Salah’s fifth AFCON with Egypt. He has yet to win the competition, having played and lost in two finals.

Despite Salah’s lack of silverware, Egypt are the most successful nation in AFCON history with seven trophies to their name.

Egypt sit at the very top of the all-time AFCON table — which FootballBlog.co.uk recently compiled using the results from the first 34 editions of the tournament. Nigeria are second in the table.

Egypt 2-1 Nigeria

Tuesday’s pre-tournament clash of the AFCON giants provided a lively and competitive final warm-up in Cairo, with Egypt edging out Nigeria thanks to a strong second-half showing.

The hosts opened the scoring just before the half-hour mark when Mahmoud Saber arrived at the back post to turn home after excellent work down the right from Zizo, who was Egypt’s standout performer throughout. Nigeria struggled for fluency going forward but were handed a route back into the contest shortly before the interval, as a poorly defended free-kick allowed Chidozie Awaziem to nod in from close range after Mohamed El Shenawy failed to deal with the delivery.

Egypt responded well after the break and quickly restored their advantage. Once again Zizo was the creator, finding Mostafa Mohamed in space inside the area, and the Galatasaray striker made no mistake as his low effort slipped past the Nigerian goalkeeper. Despite a raft of substitutions, Nigeria were unable to build sustained pressure late on, with Egypt seeing out the contest comfortably to claim a confidence-boosting win ahead of AFCON 2025.

What’s next for Egypt and Nigeria

Egypt will now head to Agadir, where all three of their Group B games will take place. After opening their campaign against Zimbabwe, Salah and Co will face South Africa and Angola.

Meanwhile, Nigeria will set up camp in their Group C base of Fez. There they will clash with Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda.