It was the exuberance of a man who may as well have never been away. Ahmed Elmohamady had waited seven years between Africa Cup of Nations appearances and now, against the same opponents he had helped Egypt defeat in the 2010 final, came the chance to put on another show. Samuel Tetteh, the young Ghana forward, is no mug but was made to resemble one seven minutes in when Elmohamady, surging forward from right-back, nutmegged him near the touchline. André Ayew was a higher-profile victim of the same trick later on and when Elmohamady suggests “you can’t do anything except nutmeg sometimes” it is with a nonchalance that mirrors the move’s art.

Try it when you are 19th in the Premier League. In fact Elmohamady, for whom the nutmeg has been a longstanding signature move, probably would and there is certainly the need for some of Egypt’s élan to transfer itself to Hull City when their wing-back returns from Gabon. It is a strange situation for the player, preparing himself for Wednesday’s semi-final against Burkina Faso at the Egypt team hotel while the innuendo of transfer deadline day plays havoc – both real and imagined – with the makeup of his club side, but here in Libreville there is one priority.

“It’s part of the job, you have to do it and as a player you are very proud to play for your country,” Elmohamady says. “Of course it’s disappointing to miss five or six games for your club, but it’s going to be very good if you go back there having won a trophy – an amazing achievement.”

Hull could do with the bounce and Elmohamady’s prospects of coming home with a medal are real enough. Egypt, back at the tournament after failing to qualify for three successive editions, have steadily improved after an inauspicious opening draw with Mali and may feel fortune is on their side after their late last-eight win over Morocco. They have won their last three Cup of Nations – in 2006, 2008 and 2010 – and have now gone 23 games unbeaten in the finals.

“Before the tournament started the manager [Héctor Cúper] had a long meeting with us, saying that we’re back now and that we’re going there to win it,” Elmohamady says. “Not going there to play some good games and come back, but going to win. That is the only focus in the group now, to reach the final and win the cup again. For the country and fans in Egypt it’s going to be a massive thing. After all that’s happened in the last few years back home, in football and everything else, these fans want to celebrate again. So we’re looking forward to going through the semi-final, winning the final and coming back with the cup.”

Only the 44-year-old goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary and two defenders – Ahmed Fathy and Mohamed Abdel-Shafy – remain from that victory over Ghana, in Luanda, that gave Egypt a seventh continental title; the rest of the squad lacks experience at this level and the barren spell of earlier this decade hardly helped. Egypt’s drop-off coincided almost exactly with the cancellation of the 2011-12 and 2012-13 domestic seasons, on account of the Port Said stadium disaster and the 2013 coup d’etat. The league had already been suspended for almost three months in early 2011 amid the Egyptian revolution and Elmohamady says the cumulative impact on the national team was profound.

“It was a big reason for everything,” he says. “Most of the players in our squad played in Egypt, so it affected both them and the team. The league wasn’t being played and that didn’t help when we met to play qualifying games. When players haven’t played in the league, just training, it’s very difficult because games are different. It was a hard time but it’s gone now; in the last few years everything has come back again [since Boxing Day 2013] and there are games every three days, which is good because here we are playing every three days too.”

Elmohamady has known such rhythms well enough since arriving in England after the 2010 final, initially on loan at Sunderland. Yet the scene when he arrives at the KCom Stadium – whether later this week or, he hopes, after Sunday’s final – may not be quite as familiar. He has yet to meet or hear from his new manager, Marco Silva, who arrived shortly after his departure from Africa; the dressing room dynamic will be different too, with Robert Snodgrass and Jake Livermore the high-profile departures and efforts continuing to replace them in the dying hours of Tuesday.

“I see a few faces have gone, like Snodgrass and Livermore, which is disappointing for us because they’re two of our best players and played many games in the last two years. Of course it’s disappointing. I don’t know how it will affect us – of course it will affect us – but we’ve bought some new players too so hopefully we can settle quickly and they can help us stay up.”

In reality there has been nothing settled about the club’s season and Elmohamady was clearly hit hard by the July resignation of Steve Bruce, who had brought him to Sunderland and then, in 2012, to Hull.

“He’s a big manager, one of the most experienced in England, and it was very, very disappointing when he left,” he says. “The fans were disappointed, the players were disappointed, but it was to do with the board and you can’t do anything with it. He’s doing a great job now with Villa so I wish him all the best, and I don’t know what is going to happen in the future.”

The accompanying half-smile suggests one possible scenario may have played itself out in his head, but any reunion would be some way away yet and he is equally quick to praise the work of Mike Phelan, who succeeded Bruce and was, Elmohamady suggests, on a hiding to nothing.

“After Steve left the club didn’t bring a new manager in quickly and left Mike in a difficult situation,” he says. “But they appointed him later and for me he’s a great man – he did a fantastic job with us. He brought two or three players in but at the end of the last transfer window, which didn’t help the team a lot, and he wasn’t given the time to show everyone what he could bring to the club. I wish him all the best, and I think he’ll get another job soon.

“Now we have a new manager and hopefully he can help us stay in the league, which is the main thing now. I’ve heard about different tactics and a new attacking system since he came in, so I hope we’ll get results.”

Results are what Hull need; they are what Egypt have got ever since Cúper, twice a Champions League runner-up with Valencia at the start of the millennium but curiously obscure in some of his movements since, took over in March 2015. Not every onlooker in Egypt is fully on board with a setup that relies on a solid, compact defensive block and quick counterattacks led by Mohamed Salah and company, but it has brought success and they are yet to concede a goal in Gabon.

Egypt’s Ahmed Elmohamady tussles for the ball with Ghana’s Samuel Tetteh. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP

“He came with a new system, different ideas and tactics, which was difficult for us to adjust to at first,” Elmohamady says. “But he’s a very, very clever manager and got the system into our minds really quickly, which is very tough for a new, foreign coach. You’re usually with the national team for four or five days, play the game and then go back to your club, so it’s not easy, but we settled into things very soon with him and the way we play fits our team very well. Some people say it’s defensive-minded but it suits us and gets results. That’s what you want, whatever system you play.

“When we have the ball, we play good football. We have good attacking players in wide areas like Salah and Trezeguet who can help the team get forward quickly. So this is what we are now, and we’re going fantastically at the moment.”

If Ghanaians are being nutmegged again at Stade de L’Amitie on Sunday night, there is every chance that this statement will hold for a little longer.