Mohamed Elneny credits coach Egyptian coach Hector Cuper for World Cup qualification

Mohamed Elneny of Egypt celebrates goal during the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations Finals Afcon Final match between Egypt and Cameroon at the Libreville in Gabon on 5 February 2017 ©Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix

by Phumzile Ngcatshe

Friday Nov 17, 2017. 14:00

Egyptian international midfielder Mohamed Elneny says their fans deserve to be happy after the Pharaohs returned to the FIFA World Cup.

Elneny spoke to the Arsenal official website stressing that Egypt's fans deserved the recent hard-fought achievement of reaching the upcoming World Cup after a 27 years absence from the tournament.

The 25-year-old midfielder began his international career in 2011 and was a key member of Egypt's qualifying squad.

"I am Mohamed Elneny and I'm going to tell you all about football in Egypt," said the midfielder.

"In Egypt, football affects so many people. We are told all the time that the relationship between the people and football affects our economy and overall mood. It affects every house, rich and poor.

"When the national team wins, everyone is happy and productive, but when we lose the opposite happens no one wants to work and the mood becomes not good.

"The generation before us won three African Cup of Nations in a row (2006,2008 and 2010), played in the Confederations Cup, and they achieved so many things.

“They did everything but they didn't qualify for the World Cup.

"I think we learned from that and our manager Mr. Hector Cuper looked into that too and managed to fix few things. This doesn't mean that previous generation was doing it wrongly.

"Now we did it and reached the World Cup. We worked hard, and the manager had a plan all the way in the qualifiers and finally we achieved the target.”