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[Albion] El Abd not going to World Cup
- Thread starter Wozza
- Start date
Superphil
Dismember
Will there be a second leg?
HastingsSeagull
Well-known member
Shame but better team deserve to go through and Ghana are class, where-as Eqypt have El-Abd in defense.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
He didn't play today.
Hillian1
( . ) ( . )
He got cut from the squad last week.
That's quite harsh for many reasons.
1. El-Abd was only called for Egypt last season (according to most here as I recall, he was a "rock" in defense). He was 4th or 5th CB in the Egypt pecking order then.
2. The Guinea game where he was responsible for the 2 goals we conceded, we didn't need any kind of result from that game, so it was as good a time as any to have a good look at the form of a CB we hadn't seen play any football at all in the season thus far. Plus, giving him some experience playing on bad African pitches (btw, the ball had a nasty bump the second before his OG). As it turned out, he was nowhere near game-ready so he was dropped for the Ghana game (even though we were missing 2 important CBs for that game).
3. As anyone who's seen the Ghana game will tell you, our defense was catastrophic and is what did us in. Partly b/c it's been Egypt's eternal weakness, partly b/c of the absence of the 2 CBs I mentioned, and partly b/c we drew the worst possible opponent given our backline's #1 weakness (pace) which happens to be Ghana's greatest strength. The rest of the team wasn't half bad, and our frontline was class most times they had the ball, but psychologically, it was too much to ask of them to compensate the ever-mounting goal deficit.
4. All credit to Ghana but to say they're a class team is pushing it. I know it doesn't get us any actual points, but we have much prettier football. Ghana relies on long balls, physical strength & pace up front, and individual brilliance in midfield/attack.