Egypt 2 – Ghana 2: a game of missed chances and learned lessons!!

To start with, we have to admit that Shawky’s goal was an illegal one since the ball didn’t pass the line and bounced inside the field; however, we don’t have to worry too much because the referee compensated Ghana by giving them a penalty in the first 5 minutes of the second half.

The overall of the game was that it was a good, competitive and challenging one against a powerful opponent who could put us under pressure; the result was acceptable but not fair at all, you would know what I mean if you saw the game.

The return of Zidan and Barakat was pretty valuable and you could feel the high pace that Zidan gave to the match as well as Barakat when he entered the field; we also saw some players show great development like Ahmed El Mohamady who was the main key of the match on the right side.

But General luck and Richard Kingstone were like a fire wall that prevented us from scoring despite the tons of chances we had.

The game was also a good opportunity to learn from our mistakes unlike previous matches where we simply dominated a weak opponent and learned nothing.

Formation

Shehata started with unique mix of players choosing to put Fathallah and Ahmed El Sayed on the bench while fielding Ahmed Fathi (a midfield player) in the defense line; A thing which he succeeded in. he also put Abd El Aziz Tawfiq on the left side and kept Ahmed Samir Farag in the substitutes which was a risk putting in mind Tawfiq’s lack of experience.

He played with a formation that is close to 5-3-1-1 with Ahmed Hassan, Shawky and Hosni Abd Raboh in the midfield, Zidan as a coordinator while Zaki was left as the sole striker.

First half

Total domination by Egypt while the Ghanaian team fall back in defense with the exception of Agogo who stood alone in attack and failed to form any threat to our defenses; there are two possible explanations for this: either the Ghanaian team wasn’t taking it seriously or they were afraid so they concentrated on defense.

Our play concentrated mainly on the right wing by Ahmed El Mohamady and Ahmed Hassan who actually did succeed in creating many dangerous chances for Zidan and Zaki but they were all wasted strangely; while, the only goal we score this half is false.

Our midfield did a great job in this half controlling the play most of the time and sending great passes to the strikers and occasionally testing Kingstone with some powerful shots especially from Shawky.

On the contrary, the defense and El Hadary remained untested a side from aimless and spontaneous attacks.

Second half

As If it was another Ghanaian team was playing than the one from the first half, they started attacking and putting us under pressure and quickly succeeded in equalizing through a “gift” penalty kick, although they deserved it after our false goal, however they returned to defense once more after the penalty kick.

They made a couple of dangerous counter attacks through Appiah taking advantage of the empty space in our back line out numbering Hani said and Wael Gomaa, since Ahmed Fathi was given more attacking tasks, and they eventually scored a second goal from one of them.

After the goal, Shehata changed things by fielding Barakat and Meteb who added pace to our attack and brought El Mohamady back to business and even Meteb scored our equalizer; we had more chances to score but credit must be given to Kingstone for his extra-ordinary performance.

Here are the goals

Lessons to be learned

- El Mohamady has grown to be essential for the team especially after he improved a lot in his crosses; however we lacked the striker who can put good headers in the goal, Mido I mean.

- Wael Gomaa is indispensable, carrying most of the defensive chores by himself.

- We need the old Hosni Abd Raboh back.

- Zaki and Zidan need to coordinate more between themselves because it appeared that everyone was playing alone.

In other news….

Away from the FIFA’s ranking crap that left us in the 30th place falling 15 ranks at once which I don’t know why!!!, we need to celebrate dominating the CAF’s awards this year.

Hassan Shehata won best coach, we won the best national team and Abu Trika won the best player ‘inside’ Africa award.

That’s all folks