Egyptian football team coach, Hector Cuper, has said he has attended Friday prayers with his players, and is open to the idea of fasting.
The former player from Argentina, Cuper, performed Friday prayers with the national team at a hotel mosque in Tanzania before an Egypt-Tanzania qualifier match last Saturday. The match ended 2-0 To Egypt, and guaranteed Egypt a place in the 2017 African Cup of Nations in Gabon.
In remarks to Al-Masry Al-Youm on Sunday, Cuper said, “This doesn’t mean I will convert to Islam. I’m the coach of the Egyptian team and I should know everything about Egypt.”
“I’m able to fast in Ramadan and pray as a kind of comradeship, in the same way as I attend wedding ceremonies, drive my car myself and eat traditional Egyptian food. Egypt is a wonderful country and has the kindest people in the world,” he added.
Regarding winning the match, Cuper said, “I know quite well that 90 million Egyptians were on tenterhooks waiting for the result of that match, after our failure to qualify in the last three championships. It's great that the team are back to play in such a well-loved championship, but there's a lot of hard work ahead, working our way back to victory in the championship and qualifying for the World Cup.”
He conceded that the team was lucky when the other side lost a penalty, which could otherwise have changed the result of the whole game. But nevertheless, the goals, said Cuper, were a reward for the huge effort put in by the team during the game. The squad has some excellent players, he said, who are on a par with the best players in the world.
He explained that he is using a strategy with his players of dividing time into three phases: qualifying for the African Cup, winning the cup, then qualifying for the World Cup. This, he said, is not impossible to achieve. He highlighted how much he cares about ranking, fearing that the team might rank low.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
