Mohamed Salah was targeted with dozens of lasers before missing a crucial penalty that saw Egypt knocked out of the World Cup by Senegal.

Stunning footage shows the Liverpool star's face covered in green light before taking the penalty, which he ultimately missed to see Senegal go through the World Cup finals.

In their previous match, Egyptian supporters had used the same tactic to distract the Senegalese players.

Senegal's victory, with Sadio Mané hitting the winning spot-kick, was a repeat of the African Cup of Nations final last month when Mané clinched a first major title for his country by also scoring the winning penalty in a shootout against the Egyptians.

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The teams missed the first four penalties of the shootout. Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly hit the crossbar with the first penalty. But Salah then blasted his penalty over the crossbar. Egypt missed three of its four penalties.

Ultimately, Mané was given the chance to seal a place at the World Cup in Qatar with Senegal’s fifth penalty. He looked at the referee, gave him a thumbs-up and then smashed it down the middle and celebrated in front of his home fans.

None of the Senegal penalty kickers were targetted with lasers.

The game finished 1-0 for Senegal after extra time thanks to a fourth-minute own goal by Egypt's Hamdi Fathi. That left it 1-1 on aggregate after Egypt's narrow first-leg victory in Cairo on Friday.

This is just the third time Senegal has qualified for the World Cup and the first time it has reached back-to-back tournaments after also making it to Russia in 2018. Before that, Senegal's only other appearance was in 2002, when it surprised everyone to reach the quarterfinals on its World Cup debut.

Ghana earlier became the first team from Africa to qualify for this year's World Cup with a 1-1 draw in Nigeria in the second leg of their tie to advance on away goals.

Thomas Partey scored the decisive goal for Ghana in the 10th minute in Abuja. William Troost-Ekong equalised for Nigeria with a penalty in the 22nd but Nigeria could not use its home advantage to get a winner.

The teams drew 0-0 in Ghana in the first leg.

The result soothed the pain of a terrible African Cup of Nations campaign for Ghana, when the four-time African champion was eliminated in the group stage in Cameroon in January.

It also gave new coach and former Ghana player Otto Addo immediate success. He was brought in to lead the team when Milovan Rajevac was fired after that African Cup failure.

Ghana will return to the World Cup after missing out on the 2018 tournament.

Portugal in after beating North Macedonia

There will be at least one more World Cup for Cristiano Ronaldo.

The all-time top scorer in men’s international soccer will get to play in his fifth World Cup after Portugal defeated North Macedonia 2-0 in the European qualifying play-offs on Tuesday.

"Goal accomplished,” Ronaldo said on Instagram after the match. “We made it to the World Cup in Qatar. We are where we deserve to be."

This time there was no stunning late winner for North Macedonia to eliminate the traditional powerhouse like against European champions Italy last Thursday in Palermo.

Bruno Fernandes opened the scoring for the hosts after a pass by Ronaldo in the first half and added another goal in the second to secure Portugal's place in the World Cup for the sixth-straight time.

"This is a special victory," Fernandes said. "We reached our goal, which was what mattered. Portugal has played better matches, but this one will stay in our memories because it gave us a place in the World Cup."

There will be no first finals appearance for North Macedonia, which was coming off its first participation in a major tournament at the 2020 European Championship.

After escaping the play-offs, Portugal will be a seeded team in Friday’s draw for soccer's showcase event in November.

ABC/AP