Ahmed Hassan is happy after Italy’s failure

CAIRO – 14 November 2017: Egyptian football legend Ahmed Hassan expressed his happiness after the failure of Italy in the 2018 World Cup European qualifiers.

Italy failed to qualify to the World Cup after a goalless draw at home against Sweden, where it didn’t overcome the 0-1 loss in the first leg.

Ahmed Hassan is the most capped international male footballer in history, with 184 appearances for the Egyptian national team.

Hassan faced the danger of losing his “most capped’ title to Gianluigi Buffon, Italy’s veteran goalkeeper.

“Actually, I’m very happy that Italy did not qualify because Buffon would get closer to my record,” Hassan stated to Filgoal.

“What I care the most for is that I want to keep my record—if Italy qualified, I would lose my record for Buffon,” he added.

The charismatic 39-year-old had solidly represented the Azzurri for the past 20 years, earning a record 175 caps, but this time not even he could lift a second-rate Italy side.
Juventus’ goalkeeper is the fourth in the list of the most capped players in history after Mexico’s Claudio Suarez (third) with 177 games and Saudi’s retired goalkeeper Mohamed El Deayea (second) with 178 games.

Italy failed to qualify to the World Cup for the third time in history as they previously failed to reach the 1930 and 1958 World Cup tournaments, while Sweden qualified to the World Cup after they missed the last two tournaments in South Africa and Brazil.