Egypt - Africa's great mystery

For me one of Africa's great footballing mysteries involves Egypt. Not the club game, which has been home to the giants of the African game Al-Ahly, but the national team. The national team has certainly provided success down the years be it winning African titles or supplying decent players who have gone on to forge decent careers in Europe. As mentioned the domestic game has been home to multiple champions league winners Al-Ahly while their great rivals Zamalek reached this year's final losing out to Mamelodi Sundowns.

The great mystery for me is how this nation has not had more world cup appearances. To date Egypt has only two world cup qualifications (1934 and 1990) with no win registered, although they did manage to cling onto a draw with Ireland in 1990. Most nations will have lulls in fortunes with periods in the footballing doldrums but Egypt really do defy this. They have been African champions a record seven times which includes the dominant era of 2006-2010 where they won the African title three times running. Yet they failed to qualify for either of the world cups in 2006 or 2010. How can such a power consistently fail to qualify for the world's showpiece event?

I'm sure Egyptian fans won't want reminding that Togo and Angola have had more recent appearances in the world cup. It's not like Egypt have lacked the talent. The likes of Mido, Amr Zaki, Hossam Ghaly and Ahmed Hassan had been part of those failed world cup attempts.

However after failing to capitalise upon that dominance the team did plunder into the doldrums. They weren't even qualifying for the African nations cup. In fact, up until this campaign they hadn't qualified since their 2010 title victory. They make their return next month in Gabon but looking slightly ahead they are also on the right path to their third world cup.
Granted it's only two games into the final stage but Egypt lead their group containing Ghana, Congo and Uganda. The group winner qualifies for Russia and Egypt have two wins from two.
These days Egypt can call upon the sheer pace of Roma's Mohammed Salah, the industry of Hull City's El-Mohamedy and Arsenal's holder in midfield El-Neny. Koka at Braga is a decent striker to have as well. Best of all though is having a Trezeguet to call upon, always useful even if it's not David.

November's home win over Ghana has got fans believing that the world cup absences will be ended soon. The return game will be huge and being the final game in the group it's shaping up to be the biggest fixture in years for the nation, in a world cup sense.

In fact the last big world cup fixture was the tie-breaking play-off for the 2010 edition. A dramatic 2-0 win over Algeria meant both countries ended the group with identical records in points and head-to-head. The play-off in Sudan saw Algeria edge through 1-0 to condemn Egypt to more hurt, despite being the three-in-a-row continental champions.

So Russia 2018, will Egypt be there? It will be worth tuning into this to see if Africa's great mystery can be solved.

The utterly dominant TNS

In Scotland, Celtic have been the subject of "can they go the season unbeaten" questions with the title secured. The Celts are, at the time of writing, fourteen points clear with two games in hand on arch-rivals Rangers. They have won all, bar a last minute slip up in Inverness, their league games but this doesn't actually make them the most dominant team in their domestic league in Europe.

We are going to Wales, well the Welsh league but the team in question are actually based in Oswestry, England. TNS, The New Saints to give them their full name are well, well clear in the league. They are twenty-one points clear of distant second placed Connah's Quay having won EVERY league game this season. That's nineteen wins to date with no slip up at all. They stand to become the earliest league champions in Wales ever. Such is their lead, they could lose seven on the bounce and still be top, thanks to the healthy goal difference built up.

TNS will be lifting their sixth successive league title in the new year giving them another shot at the champions league qualifiers. Their last defeat in all competitions was away at APOEL Nicosia back in July. They are chasing a European record held by Ajax which is twenty-six consecutive league wins. TNS have twenty-five ahead of their game against Cefn Druids on St Stephen's day.

The dominance has bought the 'how can it be good for the league' questions. In truth it can't. There is dominance then there is this where no one is even taking points off TNS. Some of this can be down to the fact that TNS are the only full-time professional club in the league. Training full-time does make a massive difference. However TNS are also getting players in that the rest simply can't afford.
Their 3-0 win over third-tier Scottish side Livingston showed how far they have come in recent years. Their annual champions league campaigns bring in fortunes that dwarf what the Welsh Europa league entrants get. So you have TNS maintaining a dominance that won't be broken unless they go down the road of the previous dominant force in Wales, Barry Town, which was financial implosion chasing progress in Europe.

On a European scale no team has gone a league season with a 100% win record. Can they do it?. No matter how dominant it would be some feat, no question. I've jinked them now with this post, haven't I.

On the subject of records, they also stand to break the largest league winning margin. Already standing at twenty-one points clear the record, which I blogged about earlier this year, is the twenty-nine point margin Celtic won by in the SPL in 2013-14.

Club world cup thoughts

Last Sunday morning (December 18th) the club world cup final was held in Yokohama, Japan. Real Madrid faced Japanese champions Kashima Antlers and while it ended in an all too predictable outcome the J-league side made the Spanish giants work for the trophy.

However this competition should be in theory at least the biggest club game in the world. The chance to be called world champions. The viewpoint of this competition is varied to say the least. It's viewed as an inconvenience in Europe while in South America it's the ultimate prize. For Africa, Asia, North America and most of all Oceania its a reward to be in the same tournament as their more illustrious European and South American opponents.

Personally I do like the idea this tournament tries to portray however it is not entirely fair that the European and South American teams get byes to the semi finals. And yes I know they are the two biggest footballing continents.

Only Europe and South America have ever won this tournament which when you look at it more isn't that surprising. They are the two biggest footballing continents and the two with the biggest tradition. Prior to the expansion of this tournament in 2005, (there was a trial in 2000) it was only ever a single match between the champions of the two big continents so to include the four other champions has been a welcome change.

The big problem for this tournament is trying to change the views from Europe. The final last Sunday wasn't even that well advertised and the game not on tv.
The viewpoint of the tournament is that it's too predictable. Europe will almost always win because they have the concentration of all the best players in the world leaving the rest well behind. The South American sides would be more competitive if their continental winning sides weren't broken up after the success. This year Atletico National had lost a chunk of their Libertadores winning side, River Plate before that and so on. A potential improvement from Asian sides could help this tournament. Given the cash Chinese sides are splashing maybe they will be more competitive. Although it remains to be seen as last year Guangzhou Evergrande were comprehensively beaten by Barcelona. That after splashing a pretty decent sum already.

Another aspect that needs changing is the host country. It seems like its always been Japan, (even the one off games before expansion were in Japan) but only Morocco and the UAE have only hosted it as well. Spread it around more. Brazil, Australia, Mexico etc open it up.

I will also tackle new FIFA president Gianni Infantino's proposal to expand this tournament even further. I've read articles suggesting thirty-two teams in the summer, another including Europa league and copa Sudamericana winners and well, I don't necessarily agree with expanding this any further. If expansion is insisted upon I'd go with maybe including the defending champions to bring it up to a nice figure of eight teams and go open draw from there.  I like the way this tournament brings together the six continental champions plus a host country champion and go for the title.

The timing of this tournament I understand is hindered by the fact that the different champions leagues end at different stages in the year but it's current slot doesn't do it much good, just before the Christmas break. Although if it was better received it would be as gooda time with no clashes with current season champions league games.

Basement battle

Saturday November 19th was the first football game I attended since the decision to up root and leave Ireland. Being Edinburgh based the game was a no brainer, it was Edinburgh City v Cowdenbeath. Sure why wouldn't you?.

A few months ago I blogged about my first ever game in Scotland while on a short trip which was seeing Hibernian dismantle Greenock Morton 4-0 at Easter Road. For this I decided to give the other club a shot. Edinburgh City are newly promoted to the Scottish football league this season having seen off East Stirling in a play-off match last May. The step up has so far proven to be a challenge but in the past few weeks City have seemingly turned a corner and had some decent results. One such result was putting League 2 leaders Forfar Athletic out of the cup which set up a tie with East Fife this coming weekend.

Their opponents in this game were Cowdenbeath a side in a free-fall. They went into this game two places above City at the bottom of League Two and to give an idea of their free-falling nature, they were in the championship two seasons ago. Two successive relegations and an awful start to this season have them residing well off any promotion picture and it all set up a fixture that few would've thought could happen not so long ago. While Cowdenbeath were in the championship, getting thumped 10-0 by another Edinburgh team in Hearts, city were winning the Lowland league (part of the 5th tier) with ease. Quite a turn around in two seasons.

City play their home games at the Meadowbank stadium down the road from Hibernian's Easter road. It does feature a pet hate of mine with a running track but the main and well only stand adds an element of charm.

Conditions wise it was bitter. A 3pm Saturday kick-off with a low sun soon gave way to a bitterly cold and crisp evening. Cowdenbeath bought a sizeable number of the 352 total attendance and were in good spirits surprisingly. They didn't have far to travel being based north of the forth.
The visitors started disastrously giving up two glorious chances for City. Had City a striker in form then they would've been two or three up in the first half. Cowdenbeath's keeper, David McGum keeping his side in the game. Cowdenbeath got back into the game with some bursts forward, one of which was foiled by the impressive Joe Mbu, whose sliding challenge on one of the attacks was as brilliant a challenge as you will see. Just before half-time Cowdenbeath struck with Kris Renton given the freedom of the city to nod home.

Half-time cups of tea were needed to brace the bitterness and the second half began with Cowdenbeath asserting some control on the game, hitting the bar later in the half before a sitter was spurned. The challenges were flying in however from both sides, not much pulling out. Eventually city did rescue a point when Dougie Gair pounced on a loose ball in the box to shoot low into the net. That came after an Ouzy See header flashed narrowly wide of McGum's post. The points were shared which wasn't enough to elevate City off the bottom but does keep them within reach of the sides above them . It keeps Cowdenbeath in among the cluster of sides that reside in the lower half of the division.