Ladies and gentelmen, we have a new cup winner!!

Egypt cup this year deserves to be called cup of surprises:

- It was the shortest cup in 20 years, started and finished in 40 days only.
- All the conventional power houses were eliminated early giving the chance for new emerging powers to make history for themselves.

In the end Haras El Hdood won the cup after beating ENPPI in the final with penalty kicks 5-2 after a 1-1 draw in which the 2 goals were scored in the extra time.

Winning their first title ever in their history since their establishment back in the 1950s, Haras El Hdood joins the top flight of Egyptian football; we no longer have two or three contenders for titles we have more than five.

The fact that the semi final comprised El Hdood, ENPPI, Asyut petroleum and Petojet (that’s a lot of oil!!!) clarifies what I said; an important remark also is the absence of public teams which have large popularity and their failure to compete with company and military teams.

Main reasons for that are the stability in management that companies and military teams enjoy compared to public teams, possessing the necessary funds, searching for new talents and stability in technical management, they don’t change the coach twice every season!!

The match itself reflected the high tactical and technical abilities the two teams have; it also reflects how Egyptian football has developed that we no more have the spontaneous style of play that characterized many teams in the past.

Here are the goals

The match also revealed many prospects that could be added to the national team, many of them already played on the international players like Ahmed Eid Abd El Malek, Ahmed Raouf, Ahmed Salama, Abd El Aziz Tawfiq, Ahmed Abd El Ghani and of course Ahmed El Mohamady.

Both teams played on the defensive and depended mainly on counter attacks and attacks were extremely concentrated on the wings and sending low and high crosses for coming midfield players.

They also applied nearly the same tactics except that Haras El Hdood played with a 4-4-2 formation which is pretty bizarre for an Egyptian teams who play with a standard 3-5-2 formation.

The match lacked chances except for one or two shots from out of the box until El Hdood scored through Ahmed Hassan Mekky; then ENPPI moved to full attack and they managed to core five minutes later.

during the penalty kicks ENPPI wasted two kicks through Mozambique’s Mano and Abdallah Ragab while Haras El Hdood manged to score all and block one through Cameroonian goalkeeper Kameni Marteni who scored the last kick.

The emergence of a new winner is another step toward the variety of competitors and the changing landscape of Egyptian football.

What do you think? Can we see in the future more teams winning titles instead of Ahly and Zamalek? Can Haras El Hdood maintain this level?