Great with the victory to our Moroccan brothers. They are my dark horse again in this World Cup. Would be amazing if they went all the way.
Egypt should be winning against New Zealand and Iran as well. Would be a big disappointment if they did not qualify from their group. They have top players like Salah, Marmoush and a core of Al-Ahly and Al-Zamalek/Pyramids FC (or whatever that team is called now) players who know each other.
But somehow Egypt always underperforms in the World Cup. They have never qualified from the group stage but at the same time they have won the most African Cup of Nations (many way back though when most other African nations barely had a team but still a impressive achievement). Back in 2018 we defeated them in the group stage for instance even though I did not expect anything from that game.
Anyway I am hoping for Salah to score some goals in the last 2 games. I have him on a manager team so he better perform.
Money ,, we aren't that rich like Saudia or gulf countries.
but if you look closely , most of our players that moved to Europe weren't from Ahly or Zamalek.
Salah was from Mokawloon team
Marmoush from wadi degla
Elneny (with Arsenal) from Mokawaloon also
etc
Al-Ahly pays better than most African teams if not all of them. Look at the dominance of Al-Ahly in Africa historically.
Also there are many more benefits when your players are leaving for Europe.
Problem with KSA has been that our best players, due to their insane wages back home and pampering, hardly ever left for Europe. Now this is slowly changing for the better but most of the best players prefer the comfort (and wages - they are paid as well as the best top players in Europe(!) with ZERO taxation moreover) of home. The league has also gotten better in recent years (before 2021 it was historically the strongest league in Asia alongside Japan and South Korea but now it is the best due to finances).
A lot also depends on your population. If you have 120 million people ike Egypt the talent pool is theoretically much, much bigger. Also we know that mostly poor people (backgrounds) become footballers as this is a risky career approach and it is frowned upon by Arab culture to go all in - when it comes to sports as you already know. Which is why Afro-Arabs (Blacks also dominate all European teams - just look at France, England, Netherlands - even Germany half of their team are half Africans or Africans, almost and Latin/North American - look at the US and Canadian team) tend to dominate in KSA.
Anyway Egypt should definitely qualify from the group which is the weakest on paper of all groups in the World Cup. Egypt will be a difficult team for any opponent on a good day in the knockout rounds.
Yep. Goal difference is no longer the first discriminator when teams are level. I am still lukewarm about this new FIFA ruling.
The objective is to stop early thrashings (like Germany 7 - 1 Curacao) from creating a near impossible task for the thrashed team to qualify, but of course, it creates a new problem of more teams eliminated in the 2nd round of matches. UEFA has moved to the same protocol. I prefer the jeopardy of goal difference in the 3rd round of group games.
Head-to-head is IMO better and more "fair". Especially over the course of just 3 games. Might be different in a league format of say 38 or 34 games.
The goal difference decision makes no sense to me. It should always be head-to-head and afterwards goal difference if the game ended in a draw.
Imagine defeating a team in a 3 game format (group stage) just to not qualify on goal difference afterwards. A bit of a joke IMO.
