Saudi Arabia and Egypt are playing in a token World Cup match after both teams were consigned to an early exit after losing their opening two games.
Mohamed Salah responded to claims his World Cup was over on Twitter, writing: “Everyone in Egypt is together and there is absolutely no disagreement between us. We respect each other and the relationship is great.”
The Liverpool and Egypt sensation missed Egypt’s first game against Uruguay and looked a shadow of the player he was in the 2018-19 season against Russia.We’ve reached the point of the group stage where we start to see games featuring already eliminated teams. This one, sadly, has two of them. Saudi Arabia and Egypt — outscored by a combined 10-1 — meet simply hoping to acquire a statistically meaningless three points and not suffer the indignity of finishing 32nd of 32 World Cup teams.
Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah, expected to be one of the stars of the World Cup before suffering a shoulder injury while playing for Liverpool in the Champions League final, clearly was hindered by his lack of training in last week’s loss to Russia, though he did manage a penalty-kick goal. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, improved from its dismal showing in a 5-0 debut loss to Russia, keeping Uruguay somewhat in check in the 1-0 defeat that followed. But it obviously would like to avoid another scoreless World Cup like in 2002, when it was outscored 12-0 in three group-stage matches.
[Uruguay vs. Russia 2018 World Cup: Can hosts retain momentum?]
The lineups
Saudi Arabia: Almosailem; O. Hawsani, Alburayk, Alshahrani, M. Hawsani; Alfaraj, Bahbir, Otayf, Almoqahwi, Aldawsari; Almuwallad.
Egypt: El-Hadary; Gabr, Hegazy, Fathi, Abdelshafy; Hamed, Elneny; Said, Treziguet, Salah; Mohsen.
There was some confusion over whether Mohamed Salah would take the field for Egypt on Monday after news surfaced that he would no longer play for the national team over his discomfort with being used as a political prop. The confusion mounted Monday when Egypt’s starting lineup first came out and didn’t feature Salah’s name on it. But the Liverpool star was on the list when FIFA released the official starting lineups later Monday morning.
