Egypt starts World Cup preparations, faces Portugal in friendly match

CAIRO – 23 March 2018: Zurich will be the capital of football for Egyptians tonight; Letzigrund stadium is set to host the clash between Egypt and Portugal with all eyes on the two stars: Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah on the Egyptian side and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, the 2016 European champion.

With 36 goals with the Reds in all competitions, Salah has been the protagonist of Liverpool this season; he has been topping the Premier League’s goal scorer ranks with 28 goals.

While Cristiano continues his consistent performance for the tenth year in a row, as he also scored 37 goals for Madrid this season in all the competition.

Cristiano will face Salah for the third time. Previously, Real Madrid met AS Roma in the 2015/2016 Champions league season in the 16th round where the White team defeated Roma 4-0 on aggregate.

Salah is reportedly linked to a possible move to Real Madrid next summer to form an amazing attack duo with Ronaldo.

Beyond the individual duel, the friendly game will allow us to ponder the power of the current European champion and first rival of Spain in the World Cup in Russia.

Also, the options to surprise in Egypt’s summer summit, which Hector Cúper, who has previously trained Mallorca, Valencia, Betis and Racing, has led Egypt to for the first time in 28 years. Egypt could not do it since the World Cup held in Italy in 1990.

Egypt Today presents its vision on how both teams would start this interesting match.

Portugal: Rui Patricio; Cédric, Alves, Fonte, Guerreiro; Moutinho, W. Carvalho, Joao Marco; Bernardo Silva, André Silva and Cristiano.

Egypt: Essam Hadary; Ahmed Fathi, Ali Gabr, Ahmed Hegazy, Mohamed Abdel-Shafy; Elneny, Tarek Hamed; Trezeguet, Abdallah El-Said, Salah; and Marwan Mohsen.

Referee: Paolo Mazzoleni (Italy).