Australia 1-1 Egypt: Salah's Panenka Ends a Shoot-Out Curse and Australia's World Cup

Egypt are into the last 16 of the World Cup, and they got there by walking straight at the thing that had beaten them four times before. A 1-1 draw with Australia after extra time in Dallas sent this round-of-32 tie to a penalty shoot-out, the exact scenario a nation that had lost its previous four would have paid to avoid. Instead Egypt scored four in a row, Australia missed twice through Harry Souttar and Lucas Herrington, and Mohamed Salah settled the whole thing with a Panenka dinked down the middle. The curse did not so much lift as get laughed off the pitch by the one player old enough to remember carrying it.

The reward is a meeting with the reigning world champions. Egypt will face Argentina, who needed an own goal in extra time to survive Cape Verde, in a last-16 tie that will centre, inevitably, on Salah against Lionel Messi. For Australia, in front of 70,244 at the Dallas Stadium, it is the end: a tournament that Tony Popovic insisted had shown the world something, closed out by two penalties that missed the target.

Egypt on top, Australia level from nothing

For long stretches this did not look like a game destined for a shoot-out, because Egypt looked the better side and, for a while, played like one. Cristian Volpato's early effort from distance skimmed the crossbar to give Australia a moment, but the pattern soon settled Egypt's way. On 13 minutes Emam Ashour, unmarked at the back post, nodded them in front, and the game had the shape Egypt wanted. Omar Marmoush should have made it two straight from the second-half restart, sliding his shot wide when the goal was the easier option, the kind of miss that tends to get punished.

It was. On 55 minutes Australia found an equaliser out of very little, the ball glancing into his own net off Mohamed Hany, a leveller with no real move behind it and no less valuable for that. Australia, who had ridden their luck to stay in it, then nearly stole it altogether. In the fourth minute of stoppage time Ramy Rabia met a header that looked in all the way, until Patrick Beach threw a hand at it and pushed it over the bar, a save good enough to keep Egypt alive and drag the tie into extra time. On another night that stop wins the match. On this one it merely delayed the reckoning.

Salah wakes up, the goal will not come

Extra time was where Salah finally came to life, the Egypt captain carrying the ball into dangerous areas and asking questions Australia had mostly kept quiet in normal time. What he could not do was force the winner, and so the game arrived at the one destination Egypt had spent recent years learning to dread. They had lost four consecutive shoot-outs. Australia, sensing the moment, played the percentages.

In the 119th minute Popovic sent on Mat Ryan, his experienced goalkeeper, specifically for the penalties, hooking Beach after the save that had kept Australia in it. It is a move managers make precisely because it sometimes works, a specialist swapped in for the lottery. This time it did nothing at all. Ryan could not keep out a single Egyptian penalty, and at the other end Australia's nerve failed where Egypt's held.

The Panenka that said everything

Souttar went first for Australia and blazed his penalty over the crossbar. Egypt kept converting. After five successful kicks in the sequence, Herrington struck the bar himself, and the mathematics turned firmly against the Socceroos. Then came the flourish. With his moment arrived, Salah did not side-foot it safely into a corner the way a man carrying four shoot-out defeats might. He dinked it straight down the middle, a Panenka, the most public gamble a footballer can take, in the least forgiving situation the sport offers.

"If someone was going to do it, it was going to be me," Salah told BBC Sport afterwards, and the explanation was as revealing as the penalty. "I'm more experienced than others, I want to give them confidence but I decided last minute on the run-up. I don't know if it's my last World Cup or not, so I had to do it." A captain choosing the boldest possible route to steady his teammates' nerves, gambling on his own composure to prove there was nothing to fear. It was Abdelmaguid who actually applied the finish to the shoot-out, sending Ryan the wrong way to win it, but the night belonged to the man who had taken the risk nobody asked him to take.

"It's history," Salah said. "I told the boys before the game 'this is the biggest stage you can play in your life so just enjoy it. Don't let the pressure get to you and not enjoy the moment.' I'm glad we managed to win the game. Bad luck for them." Asked about the prospect of facing Messi in the round of 16, he offered the diplomat's answer: "We have to respect both teams and we'll see what's next." He now knows the answer. It is Messi.

Australia go home unlucky

There was no shame in the Australian performance, only the particular cruelty of a shoot-out exit. They had been second best for long stretches, level through an own goal, and kept in the tie by a goalkeeper who then did not take the penalties. Tony Popovic, who had guided the Socceroos through the group with wins like the one over Turkey, reached for the bigger picture. "It's tough. We showed the world that Australian football is strong, they're a wonderful group and I'm devastated for them," the Australia boss said. "Unfortunately we go home and the World Cup ends for us."

He is entitled to the framing. Australia took a decent Egypt side to the last kick of a shoot-out and lost it by fine margins, the sort of exit that reads worse in the record than it felt on the pitch. For Egypt, who had also come through a comfortable group-stage win over New Zealand, the reward is the hardest test the draw could have handed them. Salah against Messi, an Egypt side that has just proved it can hold its nerve against the one team built to test it. They spent years being the side that lost shoot-outs. For one night in Dallas, they were the side that refused to.

Sources: Final result and 4-2 shoot-out score, the 1-1 draw after extra time, Emam Ashour's opener (13'), Volpato's early effort off the bar (5'), Marmoush's second-half miss, the Mohamed Hany own goal (55'), Patrick Beach's stoppage-time save from Ramy Rabia, Egypt's record of four previous shoot-out defeats, the 119th-minute introduction of Mat Ryan, the Souttar and Herrington misses, Salah's Panenka and Abdelmaguid's winning penalty, the 70,244 attendance at the Dallas Stadium, and the last-16 tie against Argentina, as reported by Sky Sports, with the Mohamed Salah and Tony Popovic quotes given to BBC Sport.