Old memories

you all know that egypt as well as all African teams are getting ready for the qualifiers of world cup 2010 to be held in south Africa. so i thought it would be interesting if we look back at our old diaries concerning the world cup; there isn’t much to mention as the 6 times African champions have a very humble history with the world cup in one of Egyptian football dilemmas but i will try to focus on the 2 major participations in the big competition.
although egypt was the first African country ever to play in the world cup, we don’t enjoy a great record in it as the likes of Tunisia, morocco, Nigeria ,Cameroon and Senegal. reasons aren’t clear why!!, but mainly it is because of ignorance some times and loss of interest other times (yes, loss of interest!!!) and bad management most of the times and certainly bad luck!!.

even the best players who came in the history of Egyptian football failed to make it to the international stage: hassan shehata, el khateeb and many others would have had another career if they made it but..!!. maybe the worst time egypt didn’t qualify was in 1974 in the African cup held right here in Cairo when we lost to Zaire (Congo now) at the semi final, the winner of this cup would have gone directly to the world cup.

also, one of the most interesting facts about egypt-world cup relationship is that egypt doesn’t qualify unless the world cup is organized in Italy!!

Egypt’s record in world cup
1930 - Did not enter
1934 - Round 1
1938 - Withdrew
1950 - Did not enter
1954 - Did not qualify
1958 to 1966 - Withdrew
1970 - Did not enter
1974 to 1986 - Did not qualify
1990 - Round 1
1994 to 2006 - Did not qualify

Italia-1934

in the qualifiers, egypt played with Palestine and won 1/4 and 7/1 to be the first team from the continent to go play in the world cup.

the system was knock-out so it was one match if you win you proceed if not so pack your bags. egypt played with Hungary which was one of the best teams back then, and lost 4-2.

Egypt’s line-up was:
Mostafa Mansour KAMEL (GK)
Mammoud MOUKHTAR
Mustafa TAHA
Mohamed LATIF
Ali EL SAYED
Mohamed HASSAN
Kamel MANSOUR
Abdel rahman FAWZI
Hassan RAGAB
Hassan EL FAR
Ismail RAFAAT
Substitute(s)
Abdel AZIZ (GK)
Wagih EL KASHEF
Abdelhamid ABDOU
Sharli HAMIDU
Hani Labib MAHMOUD
[Mohamed FARID
EL NEGRO
Ahmed IBRAHIM
Ali SHAFI
Yacout EL SOURY
KAMEL TAHA
Coach
MC REA James (SCO)

the match was played exactly on 27 may in napoli at Giorgio Ascarelli stadium.
goals were scored by:
Pal TELEKI (HUN) 11, Geza TOLDI (HUN) 27, Abdel FAWZI (EGY) 31, Abdel FAWZI (EGY) 39, Jeno VINCZE (HUN) 53, Geza TOLDI (HUN) 61

Italia-1990

now this was the big one, egypt qualified after a very hard competition with the rest of African teams to book its ticket to the finals accompanied by Cameroon. the qualification match was against Algeria in Cairo stadium. egypt previously earned a 0-0 draw back in Algeria and the world cup was only 90 minutes away and hossam hassan made a dream come true by a header in the Algerian team.

Egypt’s line up was:
1 Ahmed SHOBEIR
2 Ibrahim HASSAN
3 Rabie YASSEEN
4 Hany RAMZY
5 Hesham YAKAN
6 Ashraf KASEM
7 Ismail MOHAMED
8 Magdy ABED EL GHANI
9 Hossam HASSAN
10 Gamal ABED EL HAMID
11 Tarek SOLIMAN
12 Taher ABOU ZEID
13 Ahmed RAMZY
14 Alaa MIHOUB
15 Saber EID
16 Magdy TOLBA
17 Ayman SHAWKY
18 Osama ORABY
19 Adel ABDELRAHMAN
20 Ahmed ABDOU
21 Ayman TAHER
22 Sabet EL BATAL

Coach: EL GOHARY Mahmoud (EGY)

egypt was put in a deadly group along with england,Ireland and netherland (champions of Europe then).

Egypt-Netherland
i won’t talk, watch for yourself

Egypt-Ireland

Ireland was a very powerful team then and egypt had no way of getting a good result except defending and it eventually did. 0-0 draw was enough to keep Egypt’s chances alive, however, Ireland’s coach insulted the Egyptian team after the match because of the defensive play but he would have done the same if he were in our shoes.

Egypt-England
unfortunately, egypt lost 1-0 which was the only win in this group, all the matches went to draw. in this match, egypt wasted a lot of dangerous chances and played a great game against a great team and earned the respect of all followers.

some pictures:

so, will the current African champions make it to the big stage??, we have all what it take and we can do it.

yalla ya masrawya, shedo 7elko shwya