Algeria beats Egypt 1-0 to reach 2010 World Cup

A stunning first-half strike by defender Antar Yahya gave Algeria victory in the playoff match.

Yahya's 39th minute winner came against the run of play when he took advantage of a lapse in concentration by Egypt's defenders to hit a perfect volley in off the underside of the crossbar with his right foot from an acute angle.

The win sent thousands of people, including veiled women, to the streets of the Algerian capital Algiers to celebrate, with some setting off fireworks. Traffic came to a standstill in the center of the city.

The match was played in Khartoum, Sudan, after the two teams finished their group matches level on points and having scored and conceded the same number of goals.

The win means Algeria will make its first appearance at a World Cup since 1986 and once again highlighted Egypt's inability to carry its impressive form in Africa - it has won the African Cup a record six times - into World Cup qualification tournaments.

Egypt last appeared at a World Cup in 1990.

Failing once again to reach the game's biggest stage is likely to be hard to take for the football-mad nation.

Egypt dominated possession without creating many goalscoring opportunities, while Algeria always looked dangerous on the break.

Algeria become the fifth African nation to reach the finals, alongside Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana.

South Africa qualified as the host nation.

It was sweet revenge for the Algerians who were denied a second successive World Cup appearance when in 1989 the Egyptians won 1-0 at home in a make-or-break qualifying game that sent them to the 1990 World Cup.

Wednesday's match in Khartoum's Mareikh stadium was only possible after Egypt's Imad Motaeb scored deep in injury time to seal a 2-0 win over Algeria in Cairo Saturday.

The rivalry between the two has been fierce for decades with a history of fan violence.

It turned violent again when Egyptian fans pelted the bus carrying Algeria's team to their hotel soon after their arrival in Cairo last week. Three players were injured.

Fans battled each other in both Cairo and Algiers after the Cairo game. At least 32 people were injured following the game and the next day Egyptian businesses were ransacked in Algeria.

The tension and the violence prompted top government officials from both Arab nations to call for calm and prevent the soccer rivalry from damaging relations.

Cairo was eerily quiet during and immediately after the Khartoum game in stark contrast to the jubilation that swept the city of some 18 million people after Saturday's game and up till Wednesday's kickoff.

The atmosphere in Algiers was jubilant.

Women in hijabs, or veils, waved Algerian flags in a rare sight in the conservative North African nation and similarly euphoric scenes were seen in the French capital Paris and the port city of Marseille, home to large Algerian communities.

Hundreds of youths there honked car horns, waved the Algerian flag and took victory laps down Paris' famed Champs-Elysees.