With exactly a week to the kick-off of the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon, the Egypt national team manager, Carlos Queiroz, has spoken on his team’s preparations and how he came about the 25-man squad he is taking into the tournament.

Egypt’s opening game will be against Nigeria two days into the opening of the tournament.

According to Egyptian publication, Kingfut, the Pharaohs go into the tournament with a 25-man squad, which witnessed some surprises, mainly the exclusion of Zamalek midfielder Tarek Hamed and Al Ahly’s Mohamed Magdy Afsha.

The publication explained that the Portuguese coach explained the reasons behind his decisions, pointing out that the current group of players were the best suited to play in the AFCON in his eyes.

Hear him: “After 40 years of experience in my career, during which I coached many teams, I learned that the team is more important than the players, we bring the best solutions, the best group of players,” Queiroz said in his press conference

“My responsibility is to choose the best team, so I have to choose the players to form one player, which is the team. I’m talking about the team and not about a specific player

“I can talk about how we chose the players, we have followed the players and have had camps since last September, we have analyzed the teams and the players, we have studied every detail about the players, we have reports on everything about the national team.

“So according to the rules, we had to choose 40 players at first. We announced them, then we followed the players again and gathered more information. We know the size of the Africa Cup of Nations and the level of the competitors. We will face strong teams, teams with many players in Europe, 24 players who can decide the match and make difficult decisions,” Queiroz continued.

“We discussed everything with the technical staff, we had to pick players who can create a harmonious team with a strong mentality to fight for victory, so we had to make some decisions.

“There are many players in Egypt, we chose in the end 25 players, I mentioned only two names, but I also did not call-up Ahmed Refaat, Ahmed Yassin and others. I can only call up 25 players.

“We won’t say why they weren’t called-up, but I can say why I chose others such as Amr El-Sulya, Omar Marmoush, Mohamed Salah, and Mahmoud Trezeguet.

“It’s because I believe that these 25 players will be able to build a strong and cohesive team that plays good football and is able to win and fight for it and has a strong mentality.

“This tournament is very strong. We need players who are ready to perform whenever we need them. Before the final list of players is announced, no player has a place reserved.

“As a coach, I speak in the match, as well as the player, and, god willing, I am confident that this squad is capable of providing the best performance in the tournament.

“There are players on the reserve list that we may resort to. Everyone is free to express their opinion. I’m confident that the list I have chosen is able to properly represent the Egyptian national team,” Queiroz added.

Queiroz then spoke about his goals in AFCON and the World Cup qualifiers and how he had to cope with the schedule changes in the Egyptian Premier League.

“There is no clause in the contract of any coach with any team that asks of them to win a tournament. The main goal in my mission when I signed with the Egyptian national team was to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. I hope everyone will focus on that,” he explained.

“I, as a coach, also get confused when the calendar changes, when we came back from Qatar, no one was sure that the AFCON would actually take place. I set three programs in anticipation of anything.

“The tournament was announced a few days ago. The league was supposed to be held until 30 December, with the match between Al Ahly and Pyramids, but we were all surprised by what was happened [the game being postponed]. What do you expect from that? Societies, federations and everyone suffers from such situations.

“We adapted immediately after the league stopped on 25 December and we are now preparing for the tournament with the current program. The camp starts today, January 2nd, the European-based players arrive tomorrow. We will train until Friday morning, before each training three players will be able to speak to the media.

“The rules of the tournament allow 28 players to be included in the squad. We don’t know why, maybe they know something we don’t know. Why did they select 28 players? I can’t imagine why, but we are going with 25 players, we registered three more players. There are other players ready in case of any emergency. We have 40 players, both on the main reserve lists.

“From a tactical point of view, let me tell you something, during training, the goalkeepers do some very difficult training, more than 20 players shoot at the goalkeepers if there are one or two goalkeepers they will be very tired the next day.

“The goalkeeper can get injured at any time. We have two experienced keepers and two young ones. These four we prepare for the next four or five years. Mohamed Sobhi and Mahmoud Gad must be in such tournaments to learn, like being in the kitchen during a hot day to learn how to cook.

“Trezeguet is an experienced and a good player, I am sure he will be a key player in the tournament. Where will he play? I don’t know, after training, I will decide. When he wears the Egyptian national team shirt, he will be ready to play anywhere. This is the national team, not a club,” he continued.

The former Real Madrid manager continued to explain how he had to cope with some very difficult situations and the team’s performance in the Arab Cup.

“The Arab Cup took place for one reason, FIFA wanted to test Qatar’s ability to host the World Cup, for us it was good because it was an opportunity for me to play many matches, but we also have to respect the clubs and the local league,” he explained.

“I came to Egypt as a coach, and I signed a contract as a coach, but I am being asked to do something magical, so my salary must be increased, I’m not a magician.

“There are players I didn’t get the chance to coach in Egypt, I met them at the airport and we travelled to Qatar. Now I have to try to do another task, to be a magician. We played a great tournament, we chose the squad, there were no Pyramids players in it, am I the one who decided that Pyramids had to play during the Arab Cup?

“Abdallah El-Said, Ramadan Sobhi, and Ibrahim Adel, they were unable to participate, they called me at the time and asked me to increase the magic, well no problem. I attended many league matches and followed many players. Can any of you say that they expected Mohamed Abdelmoneim to play well in the Arab Cup? Or Marwan Daoud or Ahmed Refaat or Hussein Faisal?

“Refaat joined the Egyptian national team at 20 years of age with Bob Bradley. Where has he been in the last eight years? Great player. If you check the statistics, you will find that we played a great tournament.

“Tunisia played the final and could not score against us. We faced Qatar, which has been playing with the same team and the same coach for six years, and participated in the Euro and Copa America qualifiers.

We shot 25 times on their goal and them only three times. I’m sure most of the fans were satisfied with the team’s performance,” Queiroz explained.

Queiroz previously coached South Africa in the 2002 AFCON, where he lost to hosts Mali in the quarter-finals and remembers it as being a very difficult tournament.

“Our goal in the AFCON is to try to win every game, build a winning mentality because in March we will play the final stage of the qualifiers,” continued the 68-year-old.

“I will only have four days before it. I know that Egypt has a great history in the AFCON, but our goal remains to qualify for the World Cup. I was not the one who set qualifying for the World Cup as the main goal for the team.

“FIFA put the Club World Cup at the same time as the AFCON, and this reflects on the importance of the qualifiers, which will take place by themselves in March.

“We have to play better than the team was 10 years ago. All the teams that we will face in the tournament are doing better now than they were in 2010. We’re not going to AFCON to take a walk, we are going to win.

“We need a winning mentality, when we win the first game we will want to win the next match and so on, this is our mentality. I want a stable, strong, and harmonious team that is able to go to the final stage of the qualifiers.

“I trained South Africa in the AFCON, it’s a difficult tournament, there are logistical problems, we have to share training grounds with other teams. Playing in Africa is not like Asia or Europe, it is more difficult, you have to be mentally strong to face these conditions. I promise you that the players you have chosen are ready to fight. They will make you proud.

“I can’t lie to the players. I don’t mind the starting line-up being leaked to the media, it’s not important to me. I get a lot of invitations to do private interviews, from BBC and CNN, but I don’t want to give any exclusive, interviews, because I respect all journalists. It was easy for me to do an exclusive interview, but I don’t. I’m here to respect all the media.

“You will probably agree with me that we now have the best player in the world. Cristiano Ronaldo would be upset if he heard that. During the Arab Cup, we changed the method and the players in some matches.

“Modern football does not depend on one method, whether 4-4-2 or otherwise, but there must be an organized process for defence and attack. We don’t set a specific system for the players, but the players must adapt to more than one system. With great players like Salah, Trezeguet, Marmoush, and Mostafa Mohamed, we can qualify for the World Cup. I want the players to be confident,” Queiroz added.

Queiroz then spoke once again on the exclusion of Hamed and Afsha and his relationship with the media.

“Don’t say things I didn’t say. I didn’t say anything about the players you mentioned [Tarek Hamed and Afsha]. I said I want to build a strong team that plays good football, and I have to choose 25 players, in this group we have forwards, midfielders, defenders, and goalkeepers.

“There are six strikers, I can’t add another player. I didn’t say they can’t perform well, that’s why I chose some of them in the initial 40-man squad. I didn’t include them at the end because I have enough players, who are there and are able to provide better solutions for the team, that’s my responsibility. I can’t add other players to the current squad. I haven’t underestimated any player who is not in the team,” Queiroz confirmed.

“When I signed with the Egyptian Federation, it was not certain that the AFCON would be held on time, and accordingly I couldn’t talk about the tournament at the time. In my opinion, and I think this is the opinion of the majority, what is the most important tournament for Egypt now? 99% will say that it is qualifying for the World Cup, I have no doubt.

“I have a policy for dealing with the media according to my experience, which is to set up a program for communicating with the media. So I said that the media can attend the training every day for 15 minutes. The team belongs to the people, there are no problems in the team.

“So we held several meetings with the media during the Arab Cup to improve communication between the team and the fans. There is no reason for any tensions or problems, we have to work to achieve one goal, 100 million Egyptians are united for one goal. We have a match against Nigeria, one of the best African teams, who qualified for the World Cup more than Egypt.”

Queiroz then gave an injury update on Amr El-Sulya and how he needs to deal with the squad amid the Covid-19 pandemic and took the opportunity to praise his players.

“We will put the final touches on our program today and then we will announce it to the public. We are currently training in the Cairo International Stadium, we will then train in the hotel, you know the problem with traffic in Cairo, so we can’t go to the Cairo Stadium twice a day. So Wael Gomaa [director of football] is trying to find a stadium next to the hotel,” he assured.

“I checked the medical reports of Amr El-Sulya, and there is a good chance that he will participate in the first match, and if not, he will surely be ready for the second match.

“We have 19 local players, many of whom have a lot of experience in the AFCON. Of these 19, with the quality they have and don’t play for Al Ahly or Zamalek, they have the ability to play in Europe. If they were playing in Morocco or Algeria, for example, we would not have included them in the Egyptian national team.

“Some coaches create a squad made of specific players that will remain as long as he is with the team. Choosing players is a variable matter, when we choose a player it depends on his level during the call-up. We follow the matches, we talk to the coaches, but in a short period of time, a player may be injured, or not participate with his team.

“For example, I was coaching Colombia, I prepared players three days before a match, then 12 players contracted coronavirus. We live now in exceptional circumstances, any player suddenly may not be available to participate. He might get infected with the coronavirus, I will not go out at that time to announce his injury, I will directly go to his replacement. The national team is like a house without walls, windows, or doors. Those who can help enter it, and the door remains open to all.

“Many players want to play for the Egyptian national team and work for that, such as Refaat, Yassin, and Marwan Daoud, they’re knocking on the team’s door, and this is a good thing, why? Because the players will perform better, so you can’t close the door, that’s dangerous.

“The players have been fighting since the beginning of the camp, and I tell them that it’s their duty to work with commitment and discipline and to provide the best thing for the Egypt team.

“You may not agree with me, but this is my style. This is the most appropriate way to qualify for the World Cup. You want to qualify for the World Cup, right? I have the chance to qualify for the World Cup for the fifth time, I don’t want to miss this chance, I want to reach the World Cup and end my career having participated in five World Cups, god willing I will do it.

“Players deserve more respect than people who talk bad about them. If you give them this confidence and this love, the Egyptian team will fly to a higher and higher level. Don’t create problems out of nothing, stop saying that there are problems in the technical staff,” he continued.

Queiroz ended his statements by commenting on Al Ahly’s participation in the Club World Cup, Salah’s Covid situation, and their final preparations before travelling to Cameroon.

“What about Al Ahly’s participation in the Club World Cup if the team reaches the semi-finals? It’s a good and important question,” Queiroz revealed.

“I wonder why they put two tournaments at the same time? I would like to answer, but I’m wondering just like you. Certainly, I have a problem, and so does Al Ahly coach Pitso Mosimane.

“Is Mohamed Salah among those infected with Covid in Liverpool? All the information that came to us is good. I said when the coach decides something, the best thing is for the players to adapt to the playing system and vice versa. And for the players to trust that the system is the best for them. Sometimes we come to a match like it’s samba, but then it turns out that it’s a tango, we have to be ready.

“We will practice with the Congo national team. It’s a training session and we may play a short friendly match. We tried to play two friendly matches when we first developed the program, but things have changed too, which is why we’re in the current situation,” Queiroz concluded.

– Kingfut