How can Egypt be so good in one tournament and so bad in another?

Now that the dust has settled on the African Cup of Nations I thought it would be a good idea to look back on the tournament from a football perspective rather than at the awful events of the attack on the Togo team.

Tragic

Egypt deservedly won the tournament for a record seventh time but in all truth, the tournament never really recovered from the tragic start it had and the quality of the football never really did justice to the African continent.

Three wins in a row for Egypt confirmed what most people knew anyway, they are the best team in Africa. In relation to this particular tournament they have more goals, more appearances, more finals and more wins than any other country. They have now gone a remarkable nineteen games unbeaten.

Top ten

Egypt have also made it into FIFA’s top ten teams in the world. That puts them ahead of the likes of Greece, USA, Chile, Mexico, Serbia, Australia and all the other African teams.

With this remarkable record one has to ask how come they will not be representing their continent in its first ever World Cup tournament this summer.

Let us be honest, the final of the tournament was not much of a spectacle and Ghana were probably a little unlucky to lose to a late goal. Overall none of the tournament was all that impressive although their were one or two games that bucked the trend.

Worthy

Egypt were, as I say, worthy winners. Their record is fantastic but whilst they have been winning the African Cup of Nations since 2006, reached the quarter-finals four times since 1994 and won it on one other occasion in 1998, on the world stage they have been largely anonymous.

In fact, in the five World Cup tournaments since 1994 Egypt have not managed to qualify. That fact simply does not add up.

Worse

In their qualifying campaign for this summer’s world cup Egypt had two ridiculously bad results. They lost 3-1 at the eventual qualifiers Algeria, which was bad enough considering Algeria are currently ranked thirty-one in the world. Worse than that however was a 1-1 draw at home to Zambia. That’s right, the tenth best team in the world, champions of Africa three times in a row, drew at home to Zambia, ranked seventy-three by FIFA.

Let us not forget that in last summer’s confederations cup Egypt beat Italy 1-0 and took Brazil to the brink before the South Americans managed to win by the odd goal in seven.

Thumped

In the African Cup of Nations Egypt thumped Algeria 4-0 yet in the World Cup play-off they lost 1-0 and I have already talked about their 3-1 defeat in the group stage. It is not that Egypt can’t travel away from Africa, they are totally inconsistent on their own continent.

It is hard for someone like me, who knows very little about African football, to understand how this can possibly make sense. How can a team be so good in one tournament and so bad in another? Maybe someone could explain that for me.