Egypt, which reached the final of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, meet Tunisia on Sunday 11 June at the start of the 2019 qualifying campaign. The campaign began in an intensive closed training camp on Sunday in Borg-El-Arab, Alexandria. The squad's 10 players playing abroad: Ahmed Al-Mohammadi (Hull City, England), Mohamed Abdel-Shafei (Ahly Jeddah), Mohamed Al-Nenni (Arsenal, England), Mohamed Salah (Rome, Italy), Omar Gaber (Basel, Switzerland), Mahmoud Hassan, Trezeguet (Enderlecht, Belgium), Karim Hafez (Lens, France), Ramadan Sobhi (Stocky City, England), Amr Warda (Paouk, Greece) and Sam Morsi (Wegan, England). Argentine head coach Hector Cuper named 15 players in the domestic league. Cuper had to wait until the end of last week's matches to announce his selection of the home-based players after watching all the games. His selection includes Essam Al-Hadari (Wadi Degla), Ahmed Fathi (Ahly), Sherif Ekrami (Ahly), Abdullah Al-Said (Ahly), Hossam Ashour (Ahly), Ahmed Hegazi (Ahly), Ahmed Al-Shennawi (Zamalek), Saad Samir (Ahly), Rami Rabiaa (Ahly), Tarek Hamed (Zamalek), Mahmoud Abdel-Moneim, Kahraba (Zamalek), Amr Gamal (Ahly), Ali Gabr (Zamalek), Mustafa Fathi (Zamalek) and Ahmed Al-Sheikh (Masr Al-Maqqassa). The list includes eight players from league winners Ahly, five from Zamalek and one each from Wadi Degla and Masr Al-Maqqassa. The squad also sees the return of Rabiaa, Ashour, Fathi and Al-Sheikh to the team. Wegan's Sam Morsi made the roster as a newcomer after finally receiving his Egyptian passport. Morsi dons the Egypt jersey for the first time against Tunisia In a press conference held before the Pharaohs went to camp, Cuper said that though he was looking forward to the Tunisia game -- Egypt's first official match after the Africa Cup of Nations final in February in which it lost to Cameroon 2-1 -- he could not predict the result. “As always, I never predict results. Of course, every coach wants to win any match, official or friendly. I can't promise a win because this is football and it has always been unpredictable. We will do our best of course to play for a victory. “This game against Tunisia is different than the friendly match we played against them before the Nations Cup. Not only because this one is official and the other, which we won 2-0, was a friendly. We may know the players very well but there is a new head coach and we don't know his vision or strategy yet. This we will have to discover in the match. So, we are going to build our strategy to win the game and will therefore do our best. We have to feel optimistic to reach our goals. “I have a perfect team and I always trust my players and have always felt the same. I don't think playing in Ramadan would affect the players' performances. I believe it is not the first time for them to play in Ramadan. The game will take place almost four hours after breaking the fast and we have been holding our training sessions in the same time so the players can adjust to that. “I can't announce the starting line up from now or even name the goalkeeper who will protect the Pharaohs' net,” Cuper said. “It is still too early. I always announce my selection just hours before the match because I always believe surprises can happen anytime even minutes before kick-off. Then we would be obliged to make changes. Injuries can happen during training, or I might see something during training that might make me change a tactic. What we do as a technical staff is prepare ourselves for everything and work with all the players until the last minute as if they are all going to play the game.”
