Egypt 1 – Paraguay 2: Football logic or no logic!!

Ten men playing in front of 11 and behind them 60000 fans; the ten men team’s captain and goalkeeper is injured and replaced, after the red card, the home side equalizes from the free kick…..logic says that the home team would win easily, but because football is an illogical game and loves drama at the same time, the ten men team scores their winner in literally the last minute of the game!!!

Luck you say, I strongly disagree; I doubted this team was trained to play in such conditions and I wasn’t wrong; Adrian Coria, Paraguay’s coach said his team trained at least once per week on playing 9 to 11 so they were well prepared for such a difficult situation.

They played in the second half as if they were the 11-man team while we, despite the great first half performance, returned to individuality and silly defensive errors.

We seemed to be playing while waiting for this goal to come as Paraguay wasted the chance after the other while we were helpless in front of their solid midfield.

Despite closing the area well in the first half and showing some sort of organization in the first half, the defense line seemed to have collapsed in the second; each player kept the ball until he ran out of all options and many of the times they lost it and caused a Paraguayan counter attack.

Talaat, although better than last game, failed to convince me that he deserves all this hype; Arafat on the other hand played for himself.

The positive side is that we scored a very beautiful goal and again Afroto was the savior grabbing the attention of European clubs; also our team performed better than last game, given the level of the opponent.

Anyway, this was our toughest game and Paraguay is the team to beat; we still have a strong chance of qualifying given we beat Italy or draw or even lose by one goal.

Italy isn’t that scary and a very beatable team; with little determination and concentration we can proceed in this tournament.

Here are the highlights

So until Thursday, enjoy the rest of the matches