Egypt Fail To Accomplish The Impossible
Going into the second leg of the Final World Cup Qualifying Round against Ghana, the Egyptians knew that it would need a triple miracle if they were to stand any hope of qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1990, having been comprehensively beaten 6-1 in the first leg. However, as is usual with these brilliant people, many of them were still optimistic, they still believed!
Alas, that optimism was wasted and Egypt, despite performing quite well, were heartbroken in the end after only winning 2-1 and knowing that they will have to wait another four years for another shot at reaching the Desired Land. Experienced Egypt manager Bob Bradley decided to utilize a different XI than the one that was humiliated in Kumasi, with Zamalek Duo Hazem Emam and Mohamed Abdel-Shafi earning starts while youngsters Rami Rabia as well as Mahmoud Kahraba starting.
The lineup looked perfect, bar the inexperienced Kahraba, and Egypt took full control of the match from start to finish by dictating the tempo and creating most of the chances.
The Egyptians would actually take the lead when a free-kick by veteran Mohamed Aboutrika was converted by Amr Zaki in the 24th minute. The Egyptians would continue to create the chances via players such as Mohamed Salah and Gedo (who came on as a substitute) until Gedo would eventually score in the 83rd minute. I think that everyone knew that it was too little too late, yet there was still some time left for Kevin Prince Boateng to go ahead and score Ghana’s only goal of the game to further rub salt into Egyptian wounds.
It was an expected eventual outcome, but it still hurt very much. Probably due to the fact that this was this Egyptian Golden Generation’s final chance to get to the world cup and that legends such as Aboutrika will never show their true ability to the entire world. That and the fact that we have to wait another four years…
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