Pharaohs face Ghana in battle to the World Cup

BY AHMED EL SEBAIE

Egypt is about to make it to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil for the first time in 24 years, with only one opponent and two more games to go.

The Egyptian team has to eliminate the Black Stars of Ghana to make it to the World Cup after the two teams were drawn to face one another in Africa’s decisive play-offs round.

The 2010 quarter-finalists, Ghana, are also eager to take the Egyptian Pharaohs down to be qualified to the World Cup for the third consecutive time.

Egypt is the only African team that has not lost any game in the World Cup qualifying games so far. Whether or not they will remain undefeated will be shown in the first leg game that will take place in Accra, Ghana, on Oct. 15.

The second leg match will be held in Egypt on Nov. 15. The location of the match and the crowd ban were negotiated over the past few months by Egyptian authorities for security reasons. However, after a long period of anticipation, the Sports minister announced that the ban would indeed be lifted, and that the match would be played at the Air Defense Stadium.

Amr Shaheen, coach of the five-a-side AUC football team, told the Caravan that he wished that the game would have been held in Cairo Stadium, because we need full support that only Cairo Stadium can provide.

Shaheen added that Cairo Stadium would also be a better choice because other stadiums are not equipped with floodlights, which would prevent the match from taking place during the evening.

“Playing at daytime is certainly in [Ghana’s] favor, as they are used to it,” explained Shaheen.

Mohamed Khedr, Head Coach of the AUC football team, also thinks that playing in Cairo Stadium would be better for Egypt.

“Cairo Stadium is very scary to the African teams. Having around 80 thousand supporters chanting will affect the players of Ghana,” Khedr said, adding, “they will not be in their best mental state, especially that they have the idea that Egypt is not stable.”

Opinions varied on whether or not Ghana is the easiest opponent for Egypt to face. Khedr thinks that the match will not be too difficult.

He said that Ghana is a good team for the Pharaohs to face because the Egyptian players tend to play under a lot of pressure when they are not acquainted with the opponent. This is why our results are always negative when playing against the North African derby teams that our players are well acquainted with.

Khedr thinks that when we face a team that we think of to be stronger than us, we tend to prepare very well for them, both physically and psychologically.

Shaheen had a different opinion, as he believes that Ghana is one of the hardest opponents for us to face.

“I wished we could avoid Ghana, Nigeria and Algeria. Those are the worst opponents we could face right now,” Shaheen said.

He added that it would have been much better if we were to play against Tunisia, because they are not in their best form.

Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria are the 10 teams competing for the only five slots available for African teams for the World Cup.

Tunisia will take on Cameroon and Burkina Faso will play against Algeria. Côte d’Ivoire will face Senegal and Ethiopia will play against Nigeria.