Egyptian national football team eyes World Cup

Michael Carmen
For Al-Shorfa.com
2008-09-17

Egyptian national team players celebrate beating Congo in the 2010 World Cup-African Nations Cup second round qualifying match in Cairo. (Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images)

When it comes to football on its home continent, Egypt has risen as high as its famed pyramids and cast a large shadow on its peers. The Egyptians have won a record six CAF African Cup of Nations tournaments with those championships stringing from the inaugural event in 1957 to 2008.

When it comes to football on the sport’s greatest international showcase, Egypt has often sunk lower than its noted tombs. The Egyptians never have won a World Cup and have qualified for the tournament only twice, in 1934 and 1990. The current Egyptian national football team appears poised to qualify for the 2010 World Cup and end that near 20-year drought. The latest bit of evidence was a 1-0 victory over DR Congo in Kinshasa on Sept. 7 in a Group 12 qualifier.

Thanks to Mohamed Aboutrika’s goal in the 30th minute, the Pharaohs lead their group with 12 points, while DR Congo is second with 9 points. Egypt need to take only one point from their home match on Oct. 12 against Djibouti to ensure moving to the next round. The group winners and best eight second-place finishers advance to the last round of qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup, which will be played in South Africa.

Egypt’s win against DR Congo came despite concerns about playing on the road, where the Egyptians’ only victory in a competitive match during a four-year stretch dating from June 2004 to June 2008 came in Djibouti in an earlier Group 12 qualifier.

Then again, things have been different since Hassan Shehata was put in charge. According to FIFA.com and Goal.com, much of the credit for the Egyptians’ recent success belongs to Shehata, who took over as coach of the team when it was struggling to qualify for the 2006 World Cup and has guided it to back-to-back Nations Cup titles. Shehata, who’s known as “The Master of the Nile,” coached Egypt’s youth team to the Under-20 World Cup quarterfinals in 2003. He has a rather unorthodox coaching strategy in that he runs the team democratically rather than with the normal “my way or the highway” method. He does this despite his reputation as a fiery character and born leader.

“Many coaches make their own decisions, but I completely believe in making decisions based on the advice of my team,” Shehata told FIFA.com. “I have two assistants who helped Egypt win the Nations Cup in 1986 as players, and I highly appreciate their experience. I even give my players the space and freedom to share certain decisions with me, which tightens our relationship.”

The captain of Egypt's national football team Ahmed Hassan (2nd L) kisses the trophy of the 2008 African Nations Cup he received from Ghanean President John Kufuor (2nd R) as Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Issa Ayatou (L) and FIFA President Sepp Blatter (R) watch. (Abdelhak Senna /AFP/Getty Images)

Shehata further downplays his role in the team’s success by also giving credit to God, the Egyptian Football Association and especially his players, including scoring threats Ahmed Hossam “Mido” and Amr Zaki, and playmaker Aboutrika, the hero of the last match.

“Picking the right names,” Shehata told FIFA.com, “will make your job much easier.”

That certainly was enough to get past DR Congo and just about guarantee a berth in the next round of qualifying. Whether it’s enough for Egypt to keep making noise on the World Cup front remains to be seen.

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