The wave of attack on Queiroz rose strongly after losing to Nigeria with a clean goal in the opening match, but it began to subside gradually with the achievement of 5 consecutive victories, albeit difficult, including 3 in the playoffs, before colliding with Senegal in the final and losing 2-4 on penalties.
The Egyptians’ concern was reinforced by the team’s lackluster offensive performance, after the draw for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers pitted the “Pharaohs” against Senegal next March, with two crucial home and away matches, the winner of whose total will qualify directly for the World Cup in Qatar, scheduled for late this year.
Egypt scored only 4 goals in 7 matches in the tournament, including two for its most prominent star, Mohamed Salah, the Liverpool wing, a third for defender Mohamed Abdel Moneim, one of the most prominent players in the tournament, and a fourth for Mahmoud Hassan (Trezeguet), the Aston Villa striker, who is struggling to regain his physical and technical fitness. After a long absence from injury.
But despite what is considered an achievement, reaching the final of the tournament after a booby-trapped journey, compared to the low ceiling of expectations before the tournament, and with the difficult confrontations of Egypt, which eliminated Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco and Cameroon, the host country, as well as a large number of injuries, Queiroz was not exempt from some criticism, while Others saw that he learned from the mistakes of the beginnings and abandoned his stubbornness in the subsequent matches, and he credits him with giving confidence to new players who drew attention with the national team.
What do the followers of the 68-year-old veteran have the most?
Queiroz, who took charge months ago, began to stir up controversy early on, when he decided to exclude the two stars of Al-Ahly, Mohamed Magdy Afsha and Zamalek, Tariq Hamed, from the squad that traveled to Yaoundé to represent Egypt, amid comments on “personal” reasons for the absence of two of the most prominent Egyptian football players at the present time. .
In Nigeria’s first match, the fans were surprised by the continuation of the policy of changing positions, as Queiroz relied on Salah in the heart of the attack and Mustafa Muhammad on the side and pushed the unprepared Trezeguet mainly, and after the loss and poor performance, coach Sila Jarva received criticism that amounted to talking about the possibility of his early dismissal, but that Officials of the Egyptian Football Association touched on the dilemma of the huge penalty clause in his contract.
But Queiroz succeeded in silencing some of these voices after adjusting the formation and achieving a clean goal victory scored by Salah in the second match against Guinea-Bissau, to revive the “Pharaohs” their hopes of qualifying for the round of 16, and Queiroz himself achieved an important moral victory in the face of the press that severely cruelty to him after the first loss.
Talks continued about the importance of winning and reaping the three points, regardless of the outcome in the last match in the group against Sudan, which was decided by the rising head of Abdel Moneim at the speed of the rocket, so that the team entered a new stage and the criticism directed at the poor performance concealed behind the necessity of wrapping around the team in seemingly complex tasks, which began in a role 16 against Côte d’Ivoire.
But the attack on Queiroz soon returned due to the severe delay in his substitutions, especially the push by Ahmed El-Sayed Zizou, who whenever a substitute ignited the activity in the attacking half of Egypt, but he participated in the “Elephants” match in the second change in the 84th minute, after stress had been over He caught most of Egypt’s players while their opponent had already made 3 changes by the 72nd minute.
The match passed peacefully for the Egyptians, but after suffering with extra time and penalty kicks, to start preparations quickly to face Morocco in another predicament with North African countries, but the Egyptian team presented its best performance in the tournament almost and overturned its delay with a goal to win 2-1 after the extension of time additional.
In the semi-final match against Cameroon, Queiroz made decisions that were not clear to the fans, when he pushed Mohamed Sharif in the 106th minute and then took him out again in the 118th minute, so that the Al-Ahly striker left the stadium, with signs of surprise mixed with sadness on his face, and the fans wondered about the feasibility of paying him in the first place if the intention was to remove him. After only 12 minutes, while Zizou played the trump card only two minutes at the end of the match, during which he probably did not touch the ball.
However, the shares of criticism declined in the final match, after 3 marathon matches in the rounds of 16, 8 and semi-finals, as the Egyptian players seemed to be stressed from the first minute in the Senegal match, which in turn continued until the penalty shootout, but the push of striker Marwan Hamdi in the second half sparked a wave of criticism. Discontent against Queiroz due to his weak technical and physical potential compared to the opponent’s players.
With a few weeks remaining until the matches between Egypt and Senegal in the World Cup final qualifiers, questions about Queiroz’s philosophy return to the fore again, albeit in a more rational way amid hopes that the coach will learn from the mistakes of the Arab Cup and African Nations Cup, and the Pharaohs’ rise to the World Cup for the second consecutive and fourth time Altogether.
