Egypt – Trinidad & Tobago preview: Let the dream begin!!

After long anticipation, our boys will kick off the U-20 world cup matches against Trinidad & Tobago this Thursday at the giant Burg Al Arab stadium, the largest in Africa, in Alexandria next Thursday hoping for the 3 points to give the whole tournament a boost and win fans support when they come here to Cairo in their upcoming games.

A win would set the scene for the tournament and encourage fans to attend other matches, give a boost to the organizers, increase media attention; I can say that the three points would have a magical effect.

Football wise, the game against the Soca Warriors is theoretically the easiest in the group stage compared to Italy and Paraguay and a victory here and another against either Paraguay or Italy would put us in the next round and then things would take another twist as the whole of Egypt will be rallied behind these young men trying to make history for themselves.

Getting ready for the big event, beautiful Alexandria has announced the highest emergency levels as Egypt’s second largest city tries to gather 80 thousand fans in the stadium that day and manage all logistic and organizational issues required which is quiet a challenge (although it has a population of 4 million people, the biggest crowd it had for a football match is 20 thousand), making the challenge bigger is that the stadium is more than 20 Km outside the city.

However, I guess fans will be descending on the stadium in its first official match from all over Egypt especially that it is a holiday season and it is going to be a day to remember.

Now, on to the game

Trinidad & Tobago

To be honest, my knowledge of football in the Caribbean country doesn’t exceed former Manchester United player Dwight York and their participation in world cup 2006 after beating Bahrain in the qualifiers.

After some research, I found out the following

-Their only previous participation at a FIFA U-20 World Cup was in 1991 when Trinidad & Tobago lost all three group matches without scoring a single goal (2-0 v. Australia, 6-0 v. Egypt, 4-0 v. USSR)

• Trinidad and Tobago was the first Caribbean national team to qualify for the FIFA U-20 World Cup.

• Trinidad’s U-20 coach, Serb Zoran Vranes, lead the St.Vincent/Grenadines national team during the FIFAWorld Cup 2006 preliminary competition.

• Trinidad and Tobago has not yet won a match in a FIFA final competition. In 12 games (six in U-17, three in the World Cup and three in the U-20 World Cup) they achieved only one draw (0-0) with Sweden in Dusseldorf during the last FIFA World Cup in 2006.

• At the CONCACAF U-20 championship in 2009, Trinidad and Tobago finished fourth after losing the semi-final against the USA on penalties and the third place match against Honduras.

So we beat them before in the same tournament 6-0 but I guess they have developed a lot since then and will be a much tougher opponent this time.

Generally, like most Caribbean teams, they are characterized with high stamina, speed and a bit of talent so adapting to their physical style will be the key to victory in this game.

Team Roster

1 GK Glenroy SAMUEL – (United Petrotrin, TRI)
2 D Aubrey DAVID – (W Connection, TRI)
3 D Curtis GONZALES – (Joe Public, TRI)
4 D Sheldon BATEAU – (San Juan Jabloteh, TRI)
5 D Akeem ADAMS – (United Petrotrin, TRI)
6 M Leston PAUL – (Univ. South Florida, USA)
7 M Kevin MOLINO – (Ma Pau, TRI)
8 M Sean DE SILVA – (College of Charleston, USA)
9 F Jamaal GAY – (Rot-Weiss Oberhausen, GER)
10 F Qian GROSVENOR – (Univ. South Florida, USA)
11 M Khaleem HYLAND – (Zulte Waregem, BEL)
12 D Robert PRIMUS – (San Juan Jabloteh, TRI)
13 F Juma CLARENCE – (United Petrotrin, TRI)
14 M Jean Luc ROCHFORD – (Joe Public, TRI)
15 D Uriah BENTICK – (Liberty Univ., USA)
16 M Marcus JOSEPH – (Joe Public, TRI)
17 D Mekeil WILLIAMS – (Ma Pau, TRI)
18 D Jake THOMSON – (Southampton, ENG)
19 D Daneil CYRUS – (Joe Public, TRI)
20 GK Andre MARCHAN – (Joe Public, TRI)
21 GK Jesse FULLERTON – (Nova Univ., USA)

Egypt

We have been getting ready for this since last January, playing more than 40 games, so I guess we will have the chemistry needed to emerge victorious from the opening game.

My concern is that all the 40 games they played were uncovered by the media and unattended by the fans but this time there will be 80 thousand fans and hundreds of reporters which is going to be kind of a shock for the inexperienced players, I am afraid they won’t be able to cope with; especially if the goals come late.

But fortunately and for the first time in the history of Egyptian football there is a psychiatrist accompanying the team and has been preparing the players for such a situation; I strongly hope that we can such a person in the senior team as we have all seen that our problems are psychological in the first place.

Tactical wise, Miroslav Sokoup, team manager, plays with 4-4-2 formation and has a wide variety of players to choose from; however, players like Mohamed Talaat, Mohamed Abu Gabal (goalkeeper), Ahmed Fathi (Boogy), Islam Shokry appears to be essential for the team.

Formation: we will discover!!

The match

The fans will constitute a pressure on both sides, so the first team to score is going to release all the pressure away from them and put it on the opponent so I hope for an early goal that would make our mission a lot easier.

Also, it is going to be pretty much physical so we have to be up to it.

Prediction: 2-0 for Egypt

Streaming: before the game (if anyone has one, please post it)

Now let’s give the boys a huge cheer

PS: I got my press card for the tournament and I will see if I ca n make some interviews with coaches and players also I might be in Alexandria at the game time and may attend it in the stadium.