Egypt-angola preview

“no room for mistake” a statement that should always be infront of the players before their match against Angola. we have now reached the knock out stage and concentration must be at its highest. the opponent isn’t easy and they know us well so it will be one difficult game to win

during the first round the two teams presented different performances. egypt won 4-2 against Cameroon,3-0 against Sudan and a 1-1 draw with Zambia. on the other side, Zambia equalized with south Africa 1-1, beat Senegal 3-1 and a reached a draw with Tunisia 0-0. Egypt scored8 and conceded 3 while Angola scored 4 and conceded 2.

the difficulty of the match stems from that the 2 teams played against each other in a pre-tournament friendly where they equalized 3-3. both coaches know the opponent well. they know strength and weakness points of each other.

second, Angola is a team that plays teamwork football and this is why you should be alert with them. they don’t have this one star that if you stop him you stop the team. third, Angola has two players that play in ahly in the Egyptian league and they know the Egyptian team very well, this may also create competence between ahly players in egypt and Gilberto and flavio which may lead us out of the match plan. we want to be focused and concentrated.

concerning the Egyptian team, they have been training since last Friday with 2 sessions a day. reporters said that the players showed great concentration and looked very serious. again shehata is in front of a dilemma. he has a lot of ready and powerful players who are at the same level and eager to play. but el hadary has reserved his place at the goal. in front of him hani said and wael gomaa, the other stopper will be chosen from shady mohamed and mahmouud fathallla who was suspended in the last match. personally i prefer fathalla because he showed great understanding with his mates at the defense line and presented great matches while shady wasn’t as good as him in Zambia’s match. another problem is who is going to man mark flavio. in the friendly match flavio was superior than wael so wael became frustrated and coasted us a penalty… we can’t afford this now. so probably wael will mark manucho and mahmoud will mark flavio. by the way he was very successful in it at the ahly-zamalek derby 3 months ago

in the midfield, hosni abd raboh surely knows that he will be there unless something extraordinary happens. with him will be mohamed shawky or ahmed hassan, i really don’t know who to chose???. at the right flank ahmed fathi will be their and at the left sayed moawad will take over it.

attack players will probably be amr zaki and emad meteb under them will start mohamed zidan. maybe in the second half or when necessary abu trika will participate.

a very serious problem the Egyptian team will face is that Angola depend on crosses from the right and left wings, they scored in the friendly from it and in the tournament most of their goals were scored by headers. ahmed fathy and sayed moawad will have hard job to close this area.

match card:
event: egypt-angola, quarter final , ghana 2008
time: 19:00 (CLT) 17:00 (GHANA LOCAL TIME)
place: baba yara stadium, kumassi

probable squad:
el hadary
ahmed fathi….wael gomaa….hany said….mahmoud fathalla…sayed moawad
………………………..hosni…..shawky
……………………………….zidan
………….amr zaki…………………………..emad meteb

key matchups:
wael gomaa vs flavio: a special challenge for wael
el hadary vs clean sheet: let’s hope
strikers vs scoring again: last time amr zaki scored will emad score this time??
ahmed fathi and sayed moawad vs angola’s crosses: i think they can

predictions: very hard but sth like 2-1 or 2-0 for egypt

yalla ya masrawya …shedo 7elko shwya

here is the egypt-angola friendly match goals: