(Egypt-Argentina) preview

March 24th, 2008 | by: Tamim | Comments(20)

the champions of Africa are back in action, and when the champions of Africa play all the world watches (not really:D). because we are champions we should play with champions (kind of champions!!). Wednesday’s night egypt is taking Argentina for a football festival in Cairo stadium so what should we expect?.

after a long series of celebrations and honoring parties for the players and the staff, the real festival is there. Argentina’s match in my opinion is the first real honor for the players.the opponent is huge,actually number 1. Cairo stadium will be full and loud as it never was before, of course, it is the African champions against no 1 team in the world.

talking about the fans, el hadary’s issue will spill it’s shadow over the match (hopefully not). you know ahly fans are angry with the players also the media. but i think it is egypt playing and the fans will be mature enough to support any starting eleven.

back to football, hassan shehata chose the same 23 champions who were in Ghana and brought Egypt’s 6th cup. he thinks that this is a gesture of honoring them. consequently, he didn’t pick up new faces or old faces which didn’t participate in Ghana like mido.

personally, i don’t think we should expect from the players the same performance we saw in ghana for several reasons: first, naturally whenever anyone reaches the top or make sth big he mayn’t continue at the same level for some time and then regain his power and concentration, this applies to the egyptian team. a lot of conditions has changed since ghana 2008, some players like said moawad moved to turkey, hosni isn’t sure where he will be next season and his case is in fifa right now, el hadary…u all know, hani said wants to go to Europe but probably doesn’t know how or were, we heard he is going to spartak moscow but nothing happened then we heard ceska moscow but again nothing happened and last but not least metalorg in Ukraine but he wasn’t comfortable toward the deal so it failed….i wonder if he has any concentration left!!!.third some players aren’t having much playing time like mohamed zidan, i can’t explain why!! (you can’t explain it when someone is stupid, i mean hamburg’s coach).

the team started its preparations for the game on Saturday, zamalek players as well as those who play outside egypt joined them yesterday. as usual, everybody seem focused and every body want to take part in the historical game (you don’t play with Argentina every day!!).

no injuries or absentees in the team except for amr zaki who mayn’t play because a slight injury in his knee.

on the other side, if you look at the players roster of Argentina, your first reaction would be WOW. despite the fact that they are missing messi, riquelme, tevez, crespo and probably cambiasso but the names you find are still bright and big. shinning names that we will see are the likes of lavezzi from napoli and mascherano from liverpool and aguero from athelitico madrid.


the Argentinian team arrived in Cairo today. they seem to be focused as they refused to take any tours or visit the pyramids as most visiting teams usually do. alfio basile warned his players of the national team and more from the Egyptian fans. it looks like they are taking it seriously, should we be afraid!!!!

i don’t need to explain how Argentina play, simply they are the tango dancers. probably shehata’s biggest challenge is his players lack of speed infront of Argentinian players, i am eager to see how would he solve this problem!!. i think that the Egyptian team is a smaller copy of Argentina, same style of play but of course with different scales of measurement!!. the second challenge is the battle of midfield, if we win it we win it all. Argentina’s weakness point is their goal keeper abondanziere, we can easily score in this guy just if we make it and reach him.

the match
egypt will start attacking for a couple of minutes but then Argentina will make a counter attack and will miss a near chance so that Egyptian players realize that they are not playing with a high school team. next phase will be controlling midfield with some chances here and there. if egypt score first i hope they keep their concentration and score another or at least keep the score as it is. if Argentina scores first, oh!! the night is turning bad especially if they score early, again we have to keep concentrated. anyway, we must score first or not score at all and play extreme defense and lead the match to a draw!!

probable squad:

……………….el hadary
ahmed fathi…….wael gomaa……hani said……shady mohamed…….said moawad
………………………….hosni abd raboh…….mohamed shawky
………………………………………zidan
……………………..emad meteb…………..amr zaki

match card
what: Egypt-Argentina, friendly
when:Wednesday, 8:00 pm (clt)
where:Cairo stadium, Cairo
why: because we are the god dam champions!!

key matchups
hosni abd raboh vs mascherano: i see hosni emerging victorious out of this, he is truly a world class player
mohamed zidan vs himself: not participating much with hamburg, now it is his chance to prove that he is a classy player and that that stupid coach there is stupid
hassan shehata vs alfio basile: i really want to see if shehata would prove he is a world class coach or not
wael gomaa vs lavezzi: best defender in africa vs the neext maradona in napoli, interesting!!

prediction: 2-1 for argentina, lavezzi,aguero and zidan (amr zaki)

feel free to discuss the game, i am all ears (eyes actually)!!!

away from the game, zamalek, ahly and haras el hdoud were witnessing action in Africa:

-in the champions league, ahly qualified to round 16 after this side from eritria withdrawn the match, this is what i call intelligence!!

-zamalek won 2-0 against africa sport from cote d’ivoire, goals scored by amr zaki and mohamed abo el ela.

-in the confederations cup, harras el hdoud equalized 0-0 with moloudia from algeria in algeria