Egypt gets a reasonable group in a world-class draw

In a charming night in Luxor, Egypt impressed the world with a fantastic U-20 world cup draw festival in a fascinating 3000 years old location witnessed by high football officials from all over the world.

The organization was almost perfect and everything was great that day; even the draw was excellent for us as we won’t have to play against powerful teams like the ones in group c.

Group A (Cairo)
Egypt
Trinidad & Tobago
Paraguay
Italy

Our opening match will be against Trinidad and Tobago in Borg El Arab stadium – 80,000+ – near Alexandria which can be considered an easy start.

Paraguay is most probably our biggest contender in this group with all respect to Italy but they are notorious for doing badly in this tournament as teams refuse to send their stars and they end up playing with Serie B and Serie C players.

Our team is good; they failed to qualify to African cup’s semi final only because of one goal difference; their performance was good and comforting during the tournament.

They have been preparing a lot during the past period; they held a camp in turkey in which the played first class teams from Europe and they participated lately in a tournament in Alexandria.

Soukup, our Czech manger, has been giving the last chance to some players and from now on he is going to select his basic list of players that he will work in the next period in case some new good player emerge.

the tournament rules say that the first and second of each group qualifies along with the best four 3rd place holders; so we have a great chance to go far in this tournament

Comments on the draw

Miroslav Soukup, Egypt coach
the groups are all very strong, because every team good enough to qualify for the World Cup has to be strong. I’ve closely followed the qualifying tournaments around the world, and these are all very good teams. We’ll now begin preparing for the various systems used by our group opponents. The whole of Egypt is expecting us to succeed at the tournament. We’ll have to work very hard in the coming months and prepare ourselves for the challenge.

Zoran Vranes, Trinidad and Tobago coach
we’ve landed in a very tough group, but we’re looking forward to meeting Egypt, Paraguay and Italy. The draw ceremony was perfect – even better than I expected.”

Francesco Rocca, Italy coach
the groups are quite even. I know I can’t make mistakes in the choice of players: I have to take with me motivated and ready-for-the-fight players, because it’s a long tournament and because the first opponent will be the heat. I have a bit of time to prepare my team and I will do the best I can, because the goal is to go as far as possible.

Other groups

Group B (Cairo)
Nigeria
Venezuela
Spain
Tahiti

matches will be played in Al Salam stadium

Group C (Suez)
USA
Germany
Cameroon
Korea Republic

matches will be held in Mubarak stadium

Group D (Ismailia)
Ghana
Uzbekistan
England
Uruguay

matches will be held in Ismailia stadium (after renovations)

Group E (Port Said)
Brazil
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Australia

matches will be held in Portsaid stadium (after renovations)

Group F (Alexandria)
United Arab Emirates
South Africa
Honduras
Hungary

matches will be held in Alexandria stadium (after renovations)

anyway, the tournament will start on the 24th of september, so we still have very long time to prepare and for us ,fans, to get excited.