Wednesday, 7 February 2007
Egypt 2-0 Sweden - International Friendly
The game marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the African Football Confederation (CAF) in Cairo - the Capital of Egypt.
Ahmed Fathi has yet to make his Sheffield United debut since his arrival from Ismaily, however he was an unused substitute for the matches against Fulham (won 2-0) and Blackburn Rovers (lost 2-1).
"The victory came after a good performance. We dominated almost the entire match," Egyptian assistant-coach Shawky Ghareeb said.
"We performed well because we had studied them well before the match," he told reporters.
The game wasn't a thriller as Sweden failed to come out of the starting blocks, and the fire didn't start until around the 70 minute mark when the hosts went onto go 2-0 up through Fathi.
The visitors only threat of the game came on 36th minute when Kim Kallstrom was saved by Essam el-Hadary.
And, on the 44th minute the hostss took the lead when Zaki (who was linked with the Blades last December) rose unchallenged to Ahmed Hassan's cross to head home past Manchester City shot stopper Andreas Isaksson, causing much celebration in the 40,000 crowed.
Ahmed Fathi, on 88 minutes capped off a fine display when he burst into the box to fire a powerful left-footed shot past a helpless substitute keeper Rami Shaaban. Shaaban, a former Arsenal keeper was also linked with United in the past.
Elsewhere Alan Quinn was an unused substitute for the Republic of Ireland in their 2-1 win at San Marino, whilst brother Stephen wasn't selected as a substitute. Ireland's fixture was a qualification match for Euro 2008.