Hassan Shehata: Top 3 Interesting Facts About The Most Successful Manager In the History Of The African Cup Of Nations

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Egypt v Italy - FIFA Confederations Cup

The name Hassan Shehata is an iconic one and holds a well-deserved place in the history of the African Cup Of Nations. The man who bears it can be said to be the greatest or most successful coach in AFCON's history. One of the several exceptional feats he achieved, and indeed the one for which he is most famous is his coaching Egypt to three consecutive African Cup Of Nations victories,

a record held by no other AFCON manager. As a result, we may say that Egypt, as a footballing nation, largely owe a lot of their AFCON successes to him. In 2010, he was the highest-ranked African coach, as ranked by IFFHS, and also selected as one of the top five African coaches. Charles Gyamfi is the only coach that has somehow replicated Shehata's extraordinary feats. In this article, we present the top three interesting facts about the legendary African manager, who is unarguably the greatest in the history of the African Cup Of Nations, and indeed one of the best in African football history.

#3.  The Egyptian National Football Team

AFCON final: Ghana v Egypt

Egypt dominated the African Cup Of Nations in the 2000s, being able to get three consecutive AFCON trophies, in 2006, 2008, and 2010, which added to their four previous AFCON trophy wins made them the country with the most number of trophy wins. The Egyptian National Team was able to pull off this astounding feat under the managerial supervision of Hassan Shehata. Also at the time, the team's performance at the world level was impacted. Because of their unprecedented AFCON treble, the Egyptian National Team ranked as high as the 9th in the FIFA World Cup rankings at the time, a rare and almost impossible achievement for any African team, especially at that time. In spite of Shehata's successes in African football, his team still performed quite poorly on the international level. But still, he had transformed and built up the team like no other manager before him.

#2.  His Career As A Player

Hassan Shehata in Zamalek in 1975

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He had a quite outstanding career as a player, even though he featured most for clubs in the Egyptian Premier League and the Egypt Cup, during his long and equally prolific career. He first started as a player for the club Zamalek,(1967-1969), and then moved to Kazmain. He was also part of the Egyptian National Team (1970-1981). He was the recipient of various prestigious awards such as the best footballer in Asia in 1970, the best footballer in Egypt in 1976, the best footballer in the African Cup in 1984, and 3rd best African footballer of the year (France football) in 1974. He was named the Egyptian league top scorer twice and received the Egyptian Merit Award in1980. He retired from active football in 1983, to begin his coaching career. The experiences he had in the various clubs in which he played, played a very important role in making his career as a manager what it later became.

#1.  His Coaching Career

Egypt v Algeria - FIFA2010 World Cup Qualifier

Shehata managed several teams, achieving considerable success with most of them. He achieved his greatest success when he took up a job as the manager of the Egyptian National Team, replacing the Italian coach Marco Tardelli in 2004. Under his supervision as a manager, the Egyptians achieved unprecedented feats in the AFCON, becoming champions consecutively from 2006-2008, a feat no other coach in the tournament's history can boast of. His 2006 AFCON trophy win was Egypt's first in eight years, where they defeated Ivory Coast in the final, which was at that time a force to reckon with in African football and perhaps still is (read more here). This added to Egypt's previous victories including 2008, and 2010 victories, gave them the most AFCON trophy wins.


He was awarded the CAF Coach of the year in 2008 and ranked the best African Coach by the IFFHS in 2010. He also qualified for World Cup under 20 years as manager of the Egyptian youth team.