The technical director of the Egyptian national team affirmed that the Pharaohs delivered a great tournament in the World Cup, despite the disparities with the competing teams, stressing that the Egyptian national team relies mostly on players from the local league.
He said: "All the talk was that Egypt is not at the level of the competitors, despite the fact that we are the only team that relies mostly on local players, and despite the fact that the Egyptian league needs a lot of development, if the local player deals with professionalism and confidence in big matches, he will appear wonderfully, and all I wanted was for the players to have confidence in themselves".
Regarding the match against Belgium, he said: "I was not satisfied with the result of the match against Belgium, but I was concerned about some of the differences, we scored the first goal and were close to winning, and from my point of view there were some refereeing errors, and I wished to achieve victory at a time when everyone was happy with the draw".
He spoke about the capabilities of the Egyptian player, saying: "The Egyptian player is very intelligent and has many solutions, but if you give him the data and information he works with, he will appear very differently".
He explained: "I told the players that if we lose, there are people who only have the price of watching the match, and football in Egypt is a soft power that gives people joy and morale, and some may feel full after the team's victory".
He continued in his speech about the match against Australia, saying: "In the second half we were pressing on Australia's defenses, and some say that we could not keep up with the opponent, and this is not true, the mutual trust between me and the players helped us a lot, and it is important for the player to have all the data about the opponents".
He concluded: "The Egyptian player must believe in himself and be convinced of what he presents, we played the World Cup before it started, and we played matches against Russia, Brazil, Spain and Saudi Arabia, and I told the players that we played against Brazil on the same stadium as the World Cup, so that they feel accustomed to the atmosphere and show the best level".
