Egypt's 4-1 drubbing of Benin in World Cup qualifications was too little too late, writes Abeer Anwar Since both are out of the World Cup, the qualifying match between Egypt and Benin in Group 3 in Cairo on Sunday had little significance. Still it was a game that had to be played and Egypt made the most of it. The win gave Egypt 16 points to put it in third place after Cameroon with 20 points and Ivory Coast with 19. Benin stayed at the tail end of the group with only three points. Cameroon moved toward a fifth straight World Cup appearance scoring a late winner to upset the Ivory Coast 3- 2 and put themselves one win away from a fifth successive World Cup finals. Cameroon will now qualify for the World Cup if they win their final qualifier at home to Egypt in Yaounde on 9 October. The Ivory Coast twice came from behind in a tense game full of incident but their dreams of a World Cup finals place now lie in tatters. The Ivory Coast will now only qualify if they beat Sudan away on 7 October and Cameroon slip up in their final qualifier against Egypt. In Egypt, such calculations ended long ago after its defeat against the Ivory Coast. A World Cup appearance no longer possible, Egypt has been instead eyeing the African Nations Cup which it will host from 20 January to 10 February. Benin was the warm-up match, or rather punching bag Egypt used for the ANC championship. The Pharaohs attacked from the start and were led by Amr Zaki's hat trick. Ahmed Hossam and Hossam Ghali, who play in Tottenham and PSV Eindhoven respectively, combined for the lone goal Zaki did not score. Benin's Steffani, though, scored the goal of the math with a searing free kick that swerved into the net past a diving Abdel-Wahad El-Sayed. "The team still lacks good players on the right and left wings," Egypt's coach Hassan Shehata said after the match. "We still have to play a number of strong friendly matches to be ready for the African Nations Cup." But Shehata added that he was so far satisfied with what the national team had achieved till now.
