Iceland is my second team. Egypt is not really one of my teams (don't dislike them either), but I am just interested to see how the perform. Sometimes cheer for them, sometimes not, its just interesting to see them play good games. I would support Iceland, but I just think it will be real interesting to see how they fare together!
If you want my honest opinion though, I think Egypt is more of the same level as Slovenia. They really remind me a lot of each other, and have very similar tactics! Slovenia is a little better in defense, while Egypt might have a slight edge in attack with Salah, but they are overall very similar teams.
Okay. It wasn't clear. That makes more sense. I am very interested to see how both teams would fare. In particular, I am interested in seeing how Egypt would fare against one of UEFA's mid-tier teams, of which Iceland would be one example.
Eurogoggles I see... I honestly would expect Egypt to win 7-8 times out of 10. Egypt just has a much higher pedigree, they are a very organised team and when push comes to shove Salah gives the edge to Egypt. That said this Egypt side seems less balanced than the 2006-2010 Egypt team which somehow failed to qualify for the World Cup.
They were robbed. A lot of controversy. There was some corruption between Egypt vs Algeria in a game and a lot of violence going on.
So tell me if I'm wrong, but here's the list of teams which are still in the race to play their very first world cup: - Iceland - Panama - Syria - Burkina Faso - Cape Verde Do I miss anyone?
2006 - they were out fair and square and the controversy was between Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire 2010 - they weren't robbed, the final game that decided the tie was won fair and sqaure by Algeria and if anyone was to blame for the violence its Egypt. 2014 - Ghana simply brutally whipped them and there was no going back from that All in all Egypt failed to qualify, but no controversy as to the results.
I think you are overestimating them. They are one of the best teams in Africa, but seriously many African teams have been very poor recently. If you watched the African Cup of Nations, all teams were playing horrible and could not keep the ball. Teams like Greece, Slovakia, and Austria would have won that tournament if they were there. There was literally no proper attack at all, every team looked scared on attack and hardly strung any good passes together. By the way you pretty much just described Iceland as well. Sigurdsson is the Salah of Iceland. Salah and Elneny are great players, but other than them Iceland actually has the better team on paper. Most of Egypt's players aren't that good. Although the Stoke City player works hard and can be good on his day.
Burkina Faso and Cape Verde chances are illusory now... Senegal basically needs 1 point from their next two games.
Ridiculous. If anyone is overestimating anyone its you. I find your comment egregious and dumb. Lets end this because it'll amount to intercontinental bickery.
??? What makes you say this? I wasn't talking about Egypt specifically, I was mentioning pretty much all the other African teams accept for Egypt. Egypt is probably the best team in Africa and is a good team. The rest are rubbish.
I think 2010 there was controversy. You are right about the rest. They were awful in 2014. 2016 is when they started to become a good team again. In 2006 they just weren't that good.
Ahh... not exactly though. Slovakia will only qualify if Greece fail to win at home to Gibraltar AND Bosnia wins in Estonia. Thus Bosnia becoming the worst runner up. That's probably not going to happen, but you are right, Slovakia are not officially eliminated, although wikipedia has an E by their name...