Football 4 All

Two key members of the Egypt team who featured in the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup have hailed the impressive performance by the African champions in this year's edition of the tournament, despite the current generation suffering a disappointing first round exit.
Samir Ibrahim and Yasser Rayyan told that their opinion about the performances of the Pharaohs in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup a decade on from their own experiences in Mexico. Ibrahim was the top scorer of his side with two goals in the FIFA Confederations Cup Mexico 1999 and the former international defender said that Egypt surprised everyone with their form this year.
"Before the tournament people did not have any expectations considering the tough group we were in and everyone expected that we will lose against Brazil by a huge score and that will be followed by a natural loss from the world champions Italy and our only hope to have a positive score was against USA."
"But then the team surprised us and gave an amazing performance against Brazil and our expectations went up and when they beat Italy we were just over the moon and everyone expected that we will reach the semi-finals for the first time in the Confederations Cup," said Ibrahim about Egypt's narrow 4-3 defeat against Brazil and 1-0 win against Italy. "However, our dream was shattered by USA which everyone believed would be the easiest game," he added.