Egyptian journalists associate national team's failure with base in Grozny

The choice of Grozny as the base of the national team was a big mistake because of the remoteness of Chechnya from the cities where Egypt is to play its FIFA World Cut matches, while participation of Ramzan Kadyrov in promotion actions prevented the due rehabilitation of the key player, observers of foreign media have pointed out.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Egyptian national team accommodated in Grozny for the time of the World Cup. The two matches that the Egyptian team held since the start of the tournament were failures: they lost to Uruguay 0:1 and to Russia 1:3.

The remoteness of Grozny from the Russian cities where the Egyptian team had to play has affected the condition of its footballers. Their physical and psychological fatigue from long flights became one of the reasons for the two consecutive losses, Ikhab al-Zalaki, an Egyptian journalist, wrote in his article posted on the website of the edition "Al-Mysri al-Youm".

In his turn, Gere Longman, a sportswriter for The New York Times, writes that the rehabilitation of Mohamed Salah, an attacker of the Egyptian national team and the English "Liverpool" FC, who suffered a shoulder injury in the final of the Champions League, was hampered, among other things, by his trip to the stadium with Ramzan Kadyrov on June 10.

Salah should not participate in the training session on June 10, as he continued his rehabilitation. When the football player was resting at the hotel, he was awakened and taken to the stadium in Kadyrov's car, The New York Times asserts, citing Turko Daudov, a Kadyrov's adviser.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 21, 2018 at 09:28 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.