Confederations Cup 2009 - DAY 4: Egypt 1-0 Italy. Were you surprised? I wasn't.

Essam El Hadary. 36 years old. He has built his career playing for Al-Ahly with more than 500 appearances between 1996 and 2008 (he now plays for Sion in Switzerland). He's been playing for the Egypt National Team since 1997.  And this "old man" is the one who should take a lot of the credit for tonight's 1-0 win for Egypt over the (not so) World Champions Italy.

As I see it Italy has been playing lately a very old style of their football. An ultra defensive strategy even when they have a better team on paper. Against the United States Giuseppe Rossi came from the bench to rescue the Italians by adding the speed and aggressiveness of the youth and with his skills it was easy to turn the American defenders up and down but against the fast Egyptian defense he had no chances tonight.

At the 40 minute a perfect cross found Mohamed Homos (I can't help but giggle when I say his name) in the box and he jumped high to tap the ball totally out of reach for Gigi Buffon who just watched the ball hit the post and find the back of the net.

Then it was the Egyptian who proved being able to efficiently defend, or maybe it were Italy that was incompetent and didn't have the ability to create intelligent plays to get to the goal they need. And now the Italians need to get a result against Brazil to move to the semifinals of the 2009 Confederations Cup. Not a long ago the Italians got owned by Brazil on a friendly match 2-0 and they will now have to do a much, much, better job if they have any aspirations in this competition.

Egypt only depend on themselves now. A win against the United States and the African Champions and the Faraohs will prove the world that good football can be played anywhere on the planet.

See ya,

~Byron