I want you to think about 1934.
That is when Egypt first appeared at a FIFA World Cup. They played one game, lost to Hungary, went home, and spent the next 92 years and 25 days trying to win a single World Cup match. Across four separate appearances, across three different generations of Egyptian football, across every manager and every squad that carried the weight of that history, Egypt never won one. Not once.
On Sunday evening at BC Place in Vancouver, Mohamed Salah finally ended that wait.
Egypt came from behind to defeat New Zealand 3-1 in a Group G fixture that shifted completely in the 22 minutes after half-time. Both Salah and Mostafa Zico bagged a goal and an assist apiece as Egypt rallied from a 1-0 half-time deficit and took over first place in Group G. Trezeguet added a third late on to settle any nerves that remained. When the final whistle sounded, the Egyptian players collapsed into each other on the pitch. In the stands, red-clad Pharaohs fans who had travelled across the world to Vancouver understood exactly what they had just witnessed.
Their country had won a World Cup game. For the very first time.
Let me walk you through this game, because the first half alone tells you exactly how close Egypt came to extending that 92-year winless run by another 90 minutes.
New Zealand started aggressively. Sarpreet Singh and Elijah Just had already threatened before the quarter-hour mark, and in the 15th minute, Finn Surman gave the All Whites a deserved lead. It came from a corner, and the Egyptian marking was, to put it generously, poor. Surman powered his header home and BC Place, a stadium that holds over 52,000 people, shook with the kind of noise that tells you something significant has happened.
Egypt responded with possession and control but without the cutting edge that wins football matches. Salah, the man everyone in that ground was waiting to see, had a free-kick in the 35th minute from a promising position on the edge of the box. His attempt on goal missed to the left. At half-time, Egypt were behind, had created little of note, and looked every inch a team carrying the anxiety of their own history into the dressing room.
What came back out for the second half was a different Egypt.
Within seconds of the restart, Salah pressured goalkeeper Max Crocombe into a save less than 40 seconds in. The tempo had changed. Egypt were pressing higher, moving faster, and finding spaces that the first half had not offered them.
The breakthrough came in the 58th minute. Mohamed Hany picked out Mostafa Zico with a cross from the right and he headed home unchallenged. One-all. Ninety-two years of waiting, and suddenly Egypt were level at a World Cup for only the second time in their history.
Then Salah took over.
Nine minutes after Zico’s equaliser, the moment arrived that every Egyptian football supporter has dreamed about since this tournament began.
Zico connected with Salah up the right side on a transition play. He dribbled around his man into the box and tapped a pass ahead to Zico, who back-heeled it into a pocket of space for Salah to finish with a left-footed shot to the bottom-left corner.
Salah celebrated his 68th international goal by pumping his fist before he was mobbed by his teammates in the 67th minute.
I want you to sit with that image for a moment. Mohamed Salah, 34 years old, a man who has spent his entire career carrying the hope of an entire nation’s football on his shoulders, pumping his fist in Vancouver with tears of relief mixed into the joy. This is a player who has scored 68 goals for his country. He had never won a World Cup game before Sunday night.
The records followed immediately. At 34, Salah became the oldest goalscorer for Egypt at a World Cup. He also became the oldest African player on record to both score and assist a goal at a World Cup. And with that goal and the assist for Zico’s equaliser, Salah continued his record of either scoring or assisting in every World Cup game he has ever featured in. In 2018, he scored against both Russia and Saudi Arabia. Now in 2026, he has an assist against Belgium and a goal and an assist against New Zealand.
Trezeguet added the third in the 82nd minute, heading in a Salah corner to put the result beyond any doubt. When Salah was substituted in the 85th minute, he received a standing ovation from the entire stadium, including from the New Zealand supporters who had watched him dismantle their team’s first-half advantage with the kind of quality that reminds you why this man remains one of the best players on the planet even at 34.
I am going to give you his exact words here, because they deserve to be read in full rather than paraphrased.
“It’s incredible. I don’t know how to express it in words. It’s a great achievement for all the players, for the staff, so hopefully we can carry on like this in the group, and we can write history and qualify. In years to come it will be remembered as one of the best achievements in the history of Egyptian football. We have to enjoy today, enjoy tomorrow, then focus on the next game.”
Goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir added a line that will resonate with every Egyptian football fan reading this: “It’s the first one for Egypt in our history and, Inshallah, it’s not the last one.”
New Zealand coach Darren Bazeley was honest about what happened. “We were so good in the first half. We dominated possession and created a lot of chances. Egypt upped the tempo and we couldn’t replicate what we were doing so well in the first half. Ultimately, that hurt us. We’re still one game away from making history. We know we have to beat Belgium now.”
With this victory, Egypt took over first place in Group G. The knockout stages are now within touching distance. Their next assignment is Australia, a game that has now taken on the weight of a potential qualification clincher.
For context, here is what Salah’s contribution to this tournament looks like so far. He assisted against Belgium in Egypt’s opening group game. He scored and assisted against New Zealand. This summer’s edition has been dubbed the World Cup of the superstar, and after helping the Pharaohs to the brink of the knockout stages, Salah is proving he is still absolutely one of those.
I will leave you with a number that tells you everything about what Sunday night in Vancouver meant.
92 years. 4 World Cup appearances. 0 wins. Until now.
Egypt have won a World Cup game. Mohamed Salah scored the goal that did it. And if you are an African football fan, whether you support Egypt or not, you should allow yourself to feel something about that. Because what happened at BC Place on Sunday was not just a football result. It was a continental moment. The most famous African player of his generation, at what is almost certainly his last World Cup, winning the one thing his country had never won before.
That is the kind of story that does not come around often. We should say so.
