With no domestic football being played, Egypt's camp in Sudan is of the utmost importance, reports Ahmed Morsy In the wake of preparations for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations and 2014 World Cup qualifiers, a second-string Egypt side crushed Chad 4-0 in a friendly in Omdurman on Saturday as part of the team's closed camp in Sudan. During the camp, being staged abroad following the cancellation of the domestic league season for security reasons related to last year's revolution, Egypt, the seven-time African champions, played two friendlies. In their first game, they limped to a 2-1 victory against Uganda in Khartoum last week, in which Ahli and Zamalek players were featured. However, Egypt met Chad without its regular players including goalkeeper Essam El-Hadari who was ruled out with an injury in the Uganda friendly. Following Egypt's victory over Uganda, nine key players left the national team's Sudan camp as Cairo giants Ahli and Zamalek prepare for their respective African Champions League games next week. Even though the opposition were anything but intimidating, amid the absence of a host of regulars, the likes of little known names Ahmed Khairi, Ashour El-Taqui and Mohamed El-Nenni caught the eye with their promising performance against Chad. After half an hour against Chad, in-form teenager Mohamed Salah broke the deadlock by brilliantly notching home, following a superb through pass from club-mate El-Nenni. Two minutes before the break, Salah turned into provider when his inviting corner found captain Khairi, who headed home his second international goal to make it 2-0. During the interval, Egypt coach Bob Bradley was forced to make limited changes to his slightly-complacent side having only three substitutes available at his disposal. By featuring Salah Ashour and Ahmed Mekki, the substitutes managed to pay off and refresh the frontline in the second half. Police Union striker Salah, making his third international appearance, chased a long ball forcing defender Hassan Diallo to beat his own keeper by scoring a comical own goal when he looped a long ball over his own keeper and into the net, with one minute remaining. Substitute Mekki completed the rout in stoppage time when he curled in past the hapless keeper, following a deft through pass by Khairi. Against Uganda, the Pharaohs fell behind after a goal from Fabian Derrick Kizito in the 34th minute following a blunder pass by Zamalek defender Mahmoud Fathallah which came into the path of Kizito. He rounded keeper El-Hadari to slot into the empty net and give his side the lead. Egypt improved following the break after coach Bradley brought in Salah, El-Nenni and Ahmed Hegazi, replacing Walid Suleiman, Ibrahim Salah and Mohamed Naguib, respectively. With his first touch, Salah scored to earn Egypt a well-deserved equaliser after smartly controlling a swerving long ball from Mahmoud Abdel-Razek, better known as Shikabala, sliding it past the Ugandan keeper. Creating several scoring opportunities, the Pharaohs managed to consolidate their domination of the game, however, had to wait until injury time to clinch the winner thanks to Mohamed Abu Treika, who took over the captain's armband after El-Hadari's first-half injury. Substitute Ahmed Temsah crossed the ball to Abu Treika who jumped higher than the defenders to score the injury-time winner. Bradley, former manager of the US squad, voiced his satisfaction with the team's training camp. "I am happy with the Sudanese training camp since we got our target from it," Bradley said in the post-Chad game press conference. "The camp confirmed that the preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers are on the right path. Besides, on the personal level, I got to know the players better as I was able to determine the shortcomings that we need to tackle in the upcoming period. "Regardless of the opponents' names and their stature, what we needed to focus on is creating a personality for the team and improving our performance as well as creating harmony between the players," he explained. Bradely added that in the wake of the lack of domestic football, such games are deemed of utmost importance. "After featuring 60 players in the previous friendlies, I will pick a 22-player squad to join Egypt's last camp, but everything depends on the teams' situation in the African commitments." Egypt is expected to play against a much tougher opponent like Nigeria this month but the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has yet to confirm the game.
