Vin­cent Aboubakar came off the bench to score a stun­ning win­ner with two min­utes left as Cameroon fought back from be­hind to beat Egypt 2-1 in a thrilling Africa Cup of Na­tions fi­nal on Sun­day.

Ar­se­nal mid­fielder Mo­hamed El­neny had given Egypt the lead mid­way through the first half and Egypt looked to be on course to win an un­ri­valled eighth Cup of Na­tions crown in their first ap­pear­ance at the tour­na­ment since 2010.

But Nico­las Nk­oulou, who had come off the bench in the first half, headed in the equaliser just be­fore the hour mark and fel­low sub­sti­tute Aboubakar slammed in the win­ner in the 88th minute.

That sparked bed­lam in a near-ca­pac­ity crowd of more than 38,000 in Gabon’s cap­i­tal, made up in its ma­jor­ity by Cameroon­ian sup­port­ers.

It is a fifth Cup of Na­tions crown for the In­domitable Li­ons, a first since 2002, and the first time they have beaten Egypt in the fi­nal in three at­tempts.

Egypt fell just short on their re­turn to the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter a seven-year ab­sence, and the de­feat will be es­pe­cially painful for their coach Hec­tor Cu­per.

The Ar­gen­tine was des­per­ate to win a tro­phy af­ter a ca­reer tainted by rot­ten luck in fi­nals at club level, in­clud­ing back-to-back de­feats in the UEFA Cham­pi­ons League with Va­len­cia at the start of the last decade.

Egypt have been de­rided at times for a de­fen­sive ap­proach un­der Cu­per, but they played their part in this rarest of things — a gen­uinely en­ter­tain­ing fi­nal.

The Pharaohs had sig­nalled their in­tent within two min­utes as a de­light­ful cush­ioned pass by Mo­hamed Salah set up Ab­dal­lah El Said, but his firm shot was well held by Fab­rice On­doa in the Cameroon goal.

Egypt then opened the scor­ing mid­way through the first pe­riod with a su­perb team goal.

Amr Warda and Salah com­bined on the right and the lat­ter played the ball into El­neny in space in the area, the mid­fielder tak­ing a touch to con­trol and an­other to steady him­self be­fore blast­ing high past On­doa at his near post.

It was a bril­liant fin­ish from the mid­fielder who was re­turn­ing to the side af­ter miss­ing his team’s last two games due to a calf in­jury.

SU­PER SUBS

The odds were now very much against Cameroon.
The last Cup of Na­tions fi­nal to fea­ture more than a sin­gle goal came in 2004, when Tunisia beat Mo­rocco 2-1.

The last time a side came from be­hind to win the tro­phy was in 1994, when Nige­ria beat Zam­bia 2-1.

Hugo Broos’s side also lost cen­tre-back Adolphe Teikeu to an ap­par­ent groin in­jury just af­ter the half-hour mark, with Nk­oulou tak­ing his place.

The Lyon de­fender has been out of favour at this tour­na­ment, only start­ing in Cameroon’s fi­nal group game against Gabon.

But thrown on here through ne­ces­sity, it was he who pulled his side level in the 59th minute.

Egypt failed to fully clear their lines fol­low­ing a cor­ner and cap­tain Ben­jamin Moukandjo crossed from the left for Nk­oulou, who soared above Ahmed Hegazy to head past Es­sam El Hadary from six yards.

Cameroon were re­vi­talised by that goal, a par­ti­san crowd lifted, but Jacques Zoua fired waste­fully wide and Moukandjo blasted over from an ex­cel­lent po­si­tion as ex­tra time be­gan to seem in­evitable.

Then Aboubakar, who had been in­tro­duced at the start of the sec­ond half in place of Robert Ndip Tambe, con­trolled a long ball for­ward with his chest on the edge of the area, poked it over the head of Ali Gabr and volleyed low past El Hadary in the Egypt­ian goal.