Egypt seeking friendly opponents ahead of qualifiers

Hossam El-Badry

Monday Oct 21, 2019. 15:00

Egypt are looking to set up a friendly with either Liberia and Djibouti ahead of the start of their 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualification campaign, coach Hossam El-Badry has confirmed.

Egypt’s locally-based players, which make up the majority of the squad, will start a camp on October 28 while the Egyptian Premier League is suspended for the country’s hosting of the 2019 African Under0-23 Championships.

With the first Nations Cup qualifier against Kenya on November 15, and a second with Comoros four days later, it gives El-Badry ample time to ft in another friendly before they take on the duo.

“We are in talks with Liberia and Djibouti to arrange a friendly game during the upcoming camp,” El-Badry told reporters.

“We want to play a friendly before hosting Kenya as it’s expected to call-up new faces for the Egypt national team squad during the next camp.

“It will be difficult to call up the foreign based players early for this camp so we will make use of new faces to test them ahead of Kenya clash.”

New coach El-Badry made his debut in the dug-out with a narrow 1-0 home friendly win over Botswana last week.