Egypt 5 – Benin 1: champions’ style!!

In a game that was played in the shadows, Egypt entertained Benin’s squirrels with five goals in style with an average performance suited for the guests.

I think the last time we won with such a score line was…ummm Cote D’ivoire 4-1 (Djibouti is an exception) and in a friendly (Sudan….o-4) so I guess we have something to cheer about.

Lacking any adequate preparation for the game and Ahly players joining their colleagues only one day before it, Shehata chose to deal with the game as an experimental one.

Consequently, many new faces and old bench-warmers were fielded from the start like Walid Solieman, Ahmed Shaaban, Ahmed El Sayed, while others were given a chance like Ahmed Abd El Ghani, Wael Ryad, Islam Awad, Abd El Wahed El Sayed.

Many of them left a remarkably good impression like Walid Solieman who showed classy pieces of skill in one – on – one situations and some good passes especially in the second goal where he wanted to make Benin’s defender to score an own goal but Meteb had other plans.

Another player who reminded us of being MVP in Ghana was Hosni Abd Raboh who made a very good performance in the midfield and in attack as well as reminding us of his sweetly taken penalties.

But one key player was Emad Meteb who scored two goals and assisted another two; it looks like playing in Saudi Arabia has resurrected the striker inside Emad.

The overall team performance was satisfying considering the opponent and lack of preparation; we can say that it was better than all the past official matches although it was against a more powerful team than those who were in our group.

The opponent; however, entered the game afraid and didn’t grab my attention at all which made me doubt how they qualified to the final round of world cup qualifications and regret the fact that they aren’t in our group.

One negative thing I noticed was the fans’ absence and the lack of media coverage to the game; it is very frustrating to see how the media give priority to club news over the national team except in the case of attacking Shehata as if it is a personal thing; envy maybe!!.

All in all, we sent a strong message to anyone we are going to meet in the next period including Brazil…ok ok , I am just kidding.

here are the highlights

confederations cup draw

speaking about Brazil, The draw for confederations cup is due to take place on 22 November in South Africa and since we already know that we are playing against Brazil and that we will avoid South Africa, we can limit our choices to either Spain or Italy and one of Iraq, New Zealand and United States.

My favorite group would be: Egypt, Brazil, Italy, United States.

Easiness isn’t among my criteria, I would have chosen New Zealand, but they are all matches to remember.

what do you think? who do you want us to play against?