Egypt Need Crucial Victory
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Egypt know that nothing short of victory will keep their hopes of a first World Cup appearance since Italia 90 alive as they prepare to host Rwanda in Cairo on Sunday.
The crucial 2010 World Cup/Africa Cup of Nations qualifier was postponed from June 20 due to The Pharaohs’ participation in the 2009 Confederations Cup in South Africa, where they produced an encouraging performance.
Hassan Shehata’s side were roundly praised for their last-minute 4-3 defeat to Brazil, and then their stunning 1-0 success over Italy. But by the time the players faced the USA in their final Group B match, they looked as though they had played their final already and went down 3-0 to the Americans.
Shehata needs to find the form of the earlier matches and he has much the same squad that did duty in South Africa, except for Ahmed Fathi, who has been forced out by injury.
The Egyptians currently trail World Cup qualifying Group C leaders Algeria by six points, but do have this game in hand. Despite all their club and national success at continental level over the years – and especially recently – they have only ever been to two World Cup finals, both of which were staged in Italy in 1934 and 1990.
Rwanda will already have realistically switched their attentions to finishing in the top three in the group and in doing so booking a place at the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in Angola.
They will be without important midfield man Jean Mugiraneza as he serves a one-match suspension, but otherwise coach Branko Tucak has a full selection to pick his side from.
The two teams have only ever met once before, that being an international friendly in January 2004 that the Egyptians won comfortably 5-1.
