Ready?……not yet!!

January 10th, 2008 | by: Tamim |

today, Egypt played with Mali in abu dhabi in their second preparation match and won 1/0 with a penalty kick from hosni abd raboh.the match was important for us to see how far has the Egyptian team gone.but unfortunately Egypt played with Mali’s ghosts. i haven’t seen any kind of care about the match from Mali’s players so the match wasn’t enough to judge the Egyptian team.

atmosphere
actually, it was as if Egypt was playing in Cairo stadium. 12,000 fans filled al nahyan stadium and another 4000 outside but couldn’t enter and created a home atmosphere for the players.

first half
Egypt applied a new strategy with 4-1-2-1-2 formation and Mohamed zidan started from the beginning to replace abu trika who is suffering from a flu; also Mahmoud fathallah and wael gomaa started both in the defense for the first time together while hani said played as an advanced sweeper to start attacks and go back to defend in case of defense. the match started very poorly. both teams seemed to be not ready for the kick off and the Egyptian defense possessed the ball back in front of the goal aimlessly. although the big names, Mali’s players didn’t show any spirit of enthusiasm, they didn’t give a shit about the game. most of the play was concentrated in the midfield , none of the teams were able to impose his character or style of play. there were no chances to mention except for individual attacks from Mohamed zidan using his special skills. in the last five minutes the referee whistled for a penalty which hosni abd raboh delivered it brilliantly to make it 1/0 for Egypt.

second half
with the score 1/0 i expected that the game will be faster more powerful and more interesting. however, it was but only for 10 minutes and then every thing was back to normal with each team failing to threaten the goal o the extent that i haven’t seen el hadary except for 4 or 5 times. i must say that Mali played in this half better than the first one but still looked like an ordinary team. both managers then started using there benches. the main chances in this half as a ball that hit the post for Mali and two balls for Egypt that went just wide. eventually the Egyptian team failed to convince us that he is 100% ready for Ghana.
zidan’s magic
this player is extra ordinary, brilliant marvelous, splendid………..these words aren’t enough. he has extra extra skills he can dribble through 4 or 5 no problem or create a chance for himself from nowhere. wait for this guy and watch him carefully in Ghana. he is great!!
latest news
Ibrahim said was finally included in the roster of the players flying to ghana as hassan shehata chose him because of his significant importance for the team as he said. players who were excluded were: osama mohamed, sherf abd el fadil and waleed seliman. most important, mido will not see action in ghana and it is now confirmed as the roster was sent without mido’s name in it.