Egypt won the 2008 African Cup of Nations. They defeated Cameroon 1-0, with Mohammed Aboutreika's goal in the 77th minute.

Host Ghana finished in third place, defeating Côte d'Ivoire 4-2, with goals by Muntari, Owusu-Abeyie, Agogo, and Dramani. The Ivoirians' Sanogo scored twice in defeat. Ghanaian star Michael Essien, who plays for Premier League team Chelsea, scored two goals in the tournament.

Egypt has been competitive in ACN tournaments in the past and has won 5 titles, including the 2006 title over Côte d'Ivoire, but they never seem to be able to bring it to the World Cup.

Any thoughts on why?

I was wondering the same thing. Part of the reason may be the importance the European-based African players place on the African Nations Cup. More so in 2006 and in the past than this year, African players did not want to leave their clubside (or pressured by their managers) and there was a lot of controversial, mystery injuries that cleared up right after the ANC Finals. This year was different. I believe all the big name players showed up (most likely because it isn't a World Cup year). But from what I've heard on soccer programs and such, the Egyptians have really stepped up their game. They think a lot of their players are going to be picked up by clubs in Greece, Turkey, and Germany. Germany usually takes bigger risks in developing players for European-style soccer and then get the big bucks when they sell the player to an England, Spanish, or Italian club.

Sorry, I got a little off-point. It's going to be really fierce competition in African World Cup qualifying. 5 spots for over 40 countries. Now is it 5 + South Africa or 5 including SA? I forgot how that goes. Well, a lot will have to do with their qualifying group. Maybe Egypt's been cursed with tough groups in past qualifiers. In 2006, most of the traditional powerhouses didn't make it to Germany. Togo, Ghana, Tunisia, Angola, and Ivory Coast went with IC being the only powerhouse. At the time, Ghana was on the rise but now are considered formidable and they made it the furthest in Germany - to the round of 16 of all the African nations. It'll be very interesting to see if Egypt can transfer their success at the ANC to the World Cup qualifiers. Actually the African qualifiers will probably be the best competition in the next 2 years (outside of Euro 2008 probably).

Six teams from Africa INCLUDING South Africa will qualify for the 2010 World Cup.

I am thinking about heading to SA in 2010. I had invited a group of friends but then I started hearing stories about an increase in violence - several friends who moved there several years ago were robbed by masked gunmen with assault weapons - so now it's up in the air. I feel like the media here doesn't really cover Africa and the international press is trying to keep things hush hush so that it won't affect travel for the World Cup. I hope South Africa gets it together.

I sincerely hope that South Africa can host a successful World Cup Tournament in 2010 that is free of violence and corruption. With that said, I continue to question Sepp Blatter's original decision to "rotate" the World Cup between continents.

Yes I understand that he was doing so in the interest of fairness, but at the end of the day, if a Contenent can not sustain an event of this magnitude, then it should not be "forced" to do so.

You look at the 2014 World Cup where Brazil was the only country in South America to make a bid. None of the other South American countries were willing to host it (financial reasons being a big reason) and again, I question why Brazil should be allowed to host this event. They will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build new stadiums - when that money can be used to help ease the rampant poorness in that country.

Let countries that can properly hold events like the World Cup and the Olympics bid on it... they will be more capable of providing proper security for everyone involved, travel will be easier, and so too will television coverage.