Egypt had lost their last preperation match 1:2 against South Africa and the country nervously awaited the first match.
Libya has to replace two suspended oplayers and the injured skipper Tarek El Taib
1st half:
- Libya begin agressive
- Libya conspiciously vulnerable against any kind of crosses from the flanks
- consequence: Mido shakes off his marker and scores by a header from a well timed corner ('17)
- Egypt with confidence: #22 Abo Treka scores by a brilliant free kick ('22)
- the referee with a lenient approach concerning mistimed challenges but not when runnining too early out of the wall at a freekick
- Libya with a couple of dangerous scenes at the half hour mark
- for the rest of the half Egypt in control again, a couple of half chances
- halftime 2:0
2nd half:
- Libya looks disillusioned
- after 60 Minutes Tarek El Taib comes on for Libya and for a few minutes the team has confidence, some neat comibinations but Egypt retakes control
- after 75 minutes the Libyan keeper misjudges a bouncing ball and fouls the broken through Egyptian player - penalty
- he receives his 2nd yellow card and leaves the pitch in tears. A great scene of sportsmanship as the Libyan players try to encourage and console him
- the substitute keeper saves the penalty by Mido but Bakarat converts the rebound - 3:0
- Libya looks tired
final result 3:0
resummee:
Egypt began exploiting the weakness of Libya - crosses from the flanks, but lost that receipe during the course of the match.
In Mido they have what many North African teams often miss: a goalscorer in tight situations
Some foolish yellow cards taint the success
Libya depend on whether they can control the ball.
If their opponents are agressive and use the flanks they are only 2nd rank.