Wednesday, 18 January 2017

Essam El Hadary and his working vacation

Day -512. WorldCup2018

Africa Cup of Nations Group A, Match 1 result 1-1. Match 2 result, 1-1. Match 3, 1-1. Match 4, 1-1 until the 78th minute when Cameroon's Michael Ngadeu-Ngadju scored what turned out to be the winner against Guinea-Bissau. Hosts Gabon are going to have a tough time to qualify for the quarterfinals as they play Cameroon in the final group match while Burkina Faso play Guinea-Bissau.

In other Afcon news Egypt's 44 year old goalkeeper, Essam El Hadary, is their only fit goalkeeper. He replaced Ahmed El Shenawy early in the first match. El Shenawy is now out of the tournament with a hamstring tear. The third goalkeeper, Sherif Ekramy, suffered a hamstring strain just before the tournament started. He is now undergoing "intensive treatment". The tournament rules state that a team cannot call up a replacement later than 24 hours before a team's first match.

Therefore, it looks like Egypt are stuck with a fairytale story in the making. El Hadary has won Afcon 4 times with Egypt, the first time in 1998. So it's not exactly, "goalkeeper comes in at last minute and wins first major tournament at 44". It'll be more like,"44 year old goalkeeper, who thought he was going to Afcon as a gesture because he's a part of Egyptian football folklore, and who expected to be sitting back on the bench and not doing much training, ends up having his semi-vacation/retirement party ruined because the young guys are too fragile (but he did end up with a winner's medal and now he has the final chapter of his biography sorted)."

No comments:

Post a Comment