Paris 2024 football: Egypt ends quarter-final curse with win over Paraguay 

For the first time in their history, Egypt have reached the semi-finals of the men's Olympic football tournament.

In 11 previous attempts, the Egyptians made it to the last eight on four occasions, most recently at London 2012 and nine years later at Tokyo 2020, held in 2021.

All of them, however, ended in defeat.

That changes at Paris 2024, with an emphatic last-eight victory over Paraguay to reach the semi-finals of the competition.

Their opposing number did not make things easy, taking the lead with just 20 minutes to go through Diego Gomez, who finished off a sublime move from Julio Enciso.

Just when it looked as though the quarter-final curse was taking shape once more, Zizo's teasing cross into the box was nodded home by the undetected Ibrahim Adel with mere minutes left on the clock.

Egypt were given a lifeline.

With a further 30 minutes of extra time not providing a breakthrough, it came down to the lottery of penalties.

A steely display from the North African side, including heroics from goalkeeper Hamza Alaa, secured safe passage into uncharted territory for this young side with a shootout win of 5-4.

They will face France in the semi-final on Monday (5 August).