Monday 22 December 2025 – 02:27 AM
The Egyptian national team’s quest to regain the African Cup of Nations title after an absence of 16 years coincides with the desire of one of its stars to win the Golden Boot as the top scorer in the 35th edition of the tournament, which Morocco is hosting until the eighteenth of next January, as it includes among its ranks the duo Mohamed Salah and Omar Marmoush, who represent a great weight among the world’s football stars in recent years.
How many times have Egyptian national team stars won the Golden Shoe in the African Cup of Nations?
Historically, the stars of the Egyptian national team were the top scorers in the tournament eight times, starting with Mohamed Diab Al-Attar Al-Diba, the Al-Ittihad Alexandria striker, in the first edition in 1957, with 5 goals, including a historic quadruple against Gila Tekle Mariam, the Ethiopian national team goalkeeper, in the final match, which is a record that has stood for 68 years.
Through the legend Mahmoud El Gohary, the Egyptian national team won the award in the second edition, when it scored a hat-trick against Ethiopia against the same goalkeeper as well. The matter was repeated in the 1962 edition through Badawi Abdel Fattah, who also scored three goals, one in Uganda and two goals in Ethiopia, during the final match, so that the award remained Egyptian for the third time in a row.
In the fourth edition in 1963, Hassan El Shazly, one of the most prominent scorers in the history of Egyptian football, scored 6 goals, including a hat-trick against Nigeria in the national team’s first match in the second group, a goal against Sudan in the second round, and a brace against Ethiopia in the third-place match. He finished this edition at the top of the scorers’ list and maintained this achievement for Egypt for the fourth time.
After a 21-year absence, including 4 Egyptian participations in the 1970, 1974, 1976 and 1980 tournaments, the Nile people regained the award again through the gunner Taher Abu Zeid in the 1984 edition in Côte d’Ivoire, after he scored 4 goals, which he started with a long-range missile that missed the giant Thomas N’Kono, the Cameroonian goalkeeper, in the first round of the first group, and then he destroyed the goal of Kofi Kouadio, the goalkeeper of the Côte d’Ivoire national team. Ivory Coast in the second round, and Nigeria goalkeeper Peter Rufai scored his share of Nile Maradona’s goals in the semi-finals.
For the first time in the history of the tournament, Gamal Abdelhamid shared the award with Algerian star Lakhdar Belloumi, Ivorian star Abdoulaye Traoré, and Cameroonian Roger Milla in the 1988 Morocco edition, after he scored a brace against Kenya’s goalkeeper, David Ochieng, in the group stage.
The scenario was then repeated with Hossam Hassan, the all-time top scorer for the Egyptian national team in the 1998 edition, when he scored 7 goals against Mozambique and Zambia in the group stage and Burkina Faso in the semi-finals, and he finished the tournament as top scorer, shared equally with South Africa’s Benedict McCarthy.
Finally, the most famous substitute in the history of the African Nations, Mohamed Naji Gedo, presented an exceptional tournament in 2010 in Angola, and finished it as the top scorer when he scored 5 goals against Nigeria and Mozambique in the group stage, and Cameroon and Algeria in the quarter and semi-finals, and concluded it with the crowning goal against Ghanaian goalkeeper Richard Kingston in the final match.
