The Dream Is Over

The Dream Is Over

Date: 18-11-2009
Wrote: EP's webmaster

Unfortunately, the Pharaohs failed to make it to World Cup. However, this is football, only one team will qualify from each group. The question is, would Algeria win qualification if they were in another group? We think they would not. It is clear that Egypt gave them the chance as we generously did with Senegal and Cameroon in the past.

No World Cup for Egypt's best generation of Footballers:

Many Egyptians in the current generation will retire without having the chance to play at World Cup level. El Hadary, Moawad, Gomaa, El Saka, Hassan, Abotreka and others won't have such chance. It is surely a heartbreak for them and for us as supporters.

However, those players and their coach achieved much more than the other generations did and so, we should remain thankful for them for making Egypt proud in many occasions.

Shehata has to stay, the older players should not retire internationally at the same time so we can keep the integrity of this team and build upon its successes in the past.

Will Algeria make Africa proud?

It is clear that they can play under pressure better than Egyptians and can win headers better. However, they only won qualification because of Egypt's poor start and inability of the Egyptian team to handle North African silly football.

Egypt won African Cup of Nations in 1998 but the only game that ended in a loss was against Morocco. In 2004, Egypt lost to Algeria 1-2. In 2006, Egypt drew with Morocco 0-0 and in many other encounters in World Cup quals and African Nations, Egypt's exit came at the hands of North African teams.

They simply know how to stop the Pharaohs. Silly football, Time wasting, winning midfield with short passing, pressure, launching counters on us and excessive time wasting are all common features of what we describe as North African silly football.

Against teams which have fast footballers and players who can pass under pressure, North Africans fail miserably and so, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco will unlikely defeat Cameroon or Ivory Coast.

In World Cup, Egyptians will watch Algeria and we will see if they can make Africa proud or not. At this level, they will unlikely do better than Egypt would have done but time will tell.

Learning from mistakes:

Egyptian football has improved in the past few years but we are still lacking some basics. Ability to receive the ball, and pass it under pressure is almost non existent. Any team that tries pressing game on us will give Egypt a major headache. We all saw this today and even against Rwanda in Egypt when they held Egypt to 0-0 draw in the first half by simply applying pressure on our team.

The Egyptian team also has a major flaw in defense which is the inability to defend dead ball situations. Freekicks and corners sometimes look as dangerous as penalty kicks thanks to poor positioning and marking from the Egyptian defenders.

Last but not least, the Egyptian attackers are poor in the air, Zidan is good only when the ball comes at his feet. Meteb is good in the air but he isn't tall or strong enough to win headers. The only Egyptian who is really good in the air is Mido but the latter is not a member of the national team at the time being.

The Egyptian team will have to introduce new faces gradually who can handle pressure more, and do better in the air to benefit from crosses.