It’s between Warriors and Pharaohs: Fathi

Pharaohs to determine who wins Group G in the race for places at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Fathi, who celebrated his first title with his country’s women’s team when they won the Arab Invitational Cup over the Mighty Warriors and Tunisia reckoned that the matches between the Warriors and the Pharaohs will be a close contest for the two nations who will be trying to make up for their failure to qualify for next year’s African Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

The former Highlanders coach said although Mozambique and Guinea were also vying to top the group, his money was on either Egypt or Zimbabwe advancing.
“I don’t think it will be easy games for both teams. There is a rivalry of some sort after the teams played those games in 1994. But I think this time both countries have good relations and the reception of the Zimbabwe women’s team was different, it was good and the men’s encounter should also be played in the same sprit.
“There were problems with short tempers in that match and we don’t want to continue speaking about the past and I think it will be a good game,” said Fathi.

The Warriors’ World Cup qualifying match for the 1994 finals against the Pharaohs had to be decided at a neutral venue in Lyon, France, after their showdown in Cairo had been marred by the attack on Zimbabwe’s late coach Reinhard Fabisch who sustained a deep cut on the head after being struck by a missile thrown from the stands. That Warriors Dream Team featured the likes of John Phiri, Peter Ndlovu, Agent Sawu Henry McKop, goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar and the late duo of Francis

Shonhayi and Mercedes Sibanda. Fifa ordered a replay at a neutral venue.
Zimbabwe will meet Egypt in the Fifa World Cup qualifiers in 2013 as they have been drawn together with Guinea and Mozambique in Group G.
The team which emerges top of this group will then proceed to the last qualifying round where the last ten teams standing would be paired to play home and away with the five winners getting tickets to World Cup in Rio de Janeiro.

The Warriors will start the road to Brazil campaign next year on June 1 with a home clash against Guinea before a short trip to neighbouring Mozambique the following weekend.

However, the clash with the Pharaohs would have to wait a until 2013 when the Warriors will start with an away date in Cairo in March before completing the back to back clash three months later.
Egypt is the better ranked team at number 31 with Zimbabwe coming in at 70 and Guinea not far off at 79 while Mozambique, who had to play in the preliminary round against Djibouti to qualify, are ranked a distant 105.

“In our group I see a challenge is going to be between two countries thus Egypt and Zimbabwe. Mozambique and Guinea will give it their all but we are likely to see the battle and the fight for the ticket coming from these two countries.
“In fact, Egypt would be at an advantage as the other teams Mozambique and Guinea don’t really know us and our play.

“Mozambique and Zimbabwe come from the same region and some of their players play together in the South African Premiership. We will be a closed book to all the teams and it is an advantage to us,” said Fathi.
The Pharaohs are now under American coach Bob Bradley and although the former Highlanders coach had some reservations about the American gaffer taking charge of a team which largely understands Arabic only, he believes they “cannot judge him before he delivers”.

“We have a new coach and have had good performances from Shehata but we haven’t seen the new coach in action and we will see how it goes. It would not be an easy task for Bradley but I cannot judge a coach before he enters the ground.

“They are busy with the team and were in Emirates and have also played Brazil in an international friendly match losing 2-0. The coach believes he has to play the best teams in preparatory matches. Our current team has about four foreign-based players with the bulk of the players coming from the local league, which, as you know, is very competitive and strong. We cannot continue to cry about what happened by failing to qualify but we have to look to the future,” said Fathi.