Tunisia's long, painful wait for a meaningful piece of soccer silverware finally came to end here on Saturday when a 2-1 win over Morocco gave them their first ever African Nations Cup title.
Ziad Jaziri scored what proved to be Tunisia's winner in the 52nd minute after a dreadful error by Morocco goalkeeper Khalid Fouhami who spilled a sharp drive from Jose Clayton to present Jaziri with the goal.
Silva dos Santos, with his fourth goal of the tournament, had given Tunisia the lead after just five minutes with a close range header but, seven minutes from half-time, Youssef Mokhtari pulled Morocco level to also register his fourth goal of the competition.
The victory handed French coach Roger Lemerre his second continental crown to add to the European championship he won with France in 2000 as the Carthage Eagles finally buried the misery of two previous final defeats in 1965 and
"We have achieved our target and all the credit must go to the players, officials and supporters," said Lemerre.
"They have made history for the country and this is a day of joy for the whole nation."
Morocco's assistant coach Abdulghani Naderi blamed errors for the defeat.
"We are a young team and we deserved to play in the final," he said.
"But we made some mistakes and we gifted the trophy to Tunisia."
Tunisia went into the match without captain Khaled Badra who was suspended and his place was taken by Ajax's Hatem Trabelsi while Selim Benachour was recalled as Jawhar Mnari dropped to the bench.
Morocco brought back defender Talal El Karkouri, who had shaken off a hamstring injury, and he replaced Mohamed Yaacoubi.
Tunisia went on the attack right from the start and were in front after just five minutes.
Jose Clayton's fierce long-range drive was turned around the post by Fouhami.
The resulting corner was only half-cleared with the ball falling to Mehdi Nefti out on the right and his clever cross was met by Santos who darted in between two defenders to head confidently into the corner.
Tunisia should have then added to their tally.
Jaziri broke away from his markers only to be denied by Fouhami while, in the 15th minute, Santos wasted a golden opportunity to make it 2-0 when he was put clear by skipper Riadh Bouzazi.
But the Brazilian-born striker could only half-hit his left-foot shot and Fouhami was able to gather.
In the 20th minute, Adel Chedli then headed over the top from Jaziri's pinpoint cross while, at the other end, Mokhtari was guilty of similar inaccuracy.
But the Morocco striker, who plays his club football for Wacker Burghausen in Germany, was on target in the 38th minute for his side's equaliser.
Tunisia left-back Karim Hagui hit a lazy clearance which was intercepted by Walid Regragui whose quick pass released Youssef Hadji down the right flank.
Hadji, one of the stars of the tournament, then crossed for Mokhtari whose diving header was too good for Tunisia goalkeeper Ali Boumnijel.
Seven minutes into the second half, Tunisia were back in front thanks to a disastrous piece of goalkeeping by Fouhami.
Clayton played a smart one-two with Santos and his fierce left-foot drive slipped out of the grasp of Fouhami and the ball fell at the feet of Jaziri who had the simplest task to score from just six yards with the Moroccan keeper left to thump the ground in frustration.
Santos also has the extra satisfaction of joining Mokhtari, Cameroon's Patrick Mboma, Jay Jay Okocha of Nigeria as well as Mali's Frederic Kanoute as tournament top scorer with all five players hitting four goals each.