Egypt kept alive their hopes of winning a third straight African Nations Cup title with a 4-0 semi-final victory over North African rivals Algeria, who had three players sent off.
Egypt opened the scoring in the first half from the penalty spot through Hosny Abd Rabou after Rafik Halliche was penalised for a foul on Emad Motaeb that saw the defender shown a second yellow card.
Mohamed Zidan doubled the lead in the second half before Algeria’s misery was compounded when Nadir Belhadj received a straight red-card for an unpleasant two-footed tackle on Ahmed Al-Muhammadi.
Substitute Mohamed Abdel-Shafy made it 3-0 with a neat finish moments after coming off the bench before keeper Fawzi Chaouchi, who was lucky not to be sent off earlier in the game when he appeared to aim a head-butt at the referee, became the third player to be sent off for a wild swing at Mohamed Nagy Gedo.
Gedo, a second-half super-sub all tournament, rounded off the scoring deep in injury time to complete the rout with his fourth goal in the Cup, making him top scorer after a meteoric rise from obscurity.
Egypt came into the game hell-bent on revenge having been beaten by their opponents in a one-off World Cup qualification play-off in November.