The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) named Portuguese tactician Carlos Queiroz as the national team’s coach on Wednesday, succeeding Hossam El-Badry — who was sacked on Monday.

The Portuguese coach will have three Portuguese assistants in addition to Diaa El-Sayed, Mohamed Shawky from Egypt, along with the Pharaohs’ iconic keeper, Essam El-Hadary, as a goalkeeping coach.

Queiroz won the U-20 World Cup with Portugal in the start of his managerial career in 1989 and 1991 and won with Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon in the 1994/1995 Portuguese Cup along with the 1995/1996 Portuguese Super Cup.

He also coached Real Madrid for a single season in 2003/2004 and won the Spanish Super Cup.

The 68-year-old tactician was the assistant manager in Manchester United as well, working with the legendary coach Alex Fergusson for four seasons.

On the international level, Queiroz coached Portugal shortly after his great success with their U-20 team and was also hired by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia respectively in the late 90s.

His longest stint was with the Iranian national team from 2011 until 2019, before leaving to coach Colombia till December 2020, and now he finds himself coaching the Pharaohs.

Queiroz — who never won any titles with any of the national teams he has coached — has only one experience in the African continent, which was when he coached the South African national team from May 2001 to March 2002.

The Portuguese tactician will lack the luxury of time to prepare and to get to know the players, as Egypt is scheduled for a crucial double header against Libya in the World Cup qualifiers in October.

Then the Pharaohs will resume their World Cup qualifiers against Gabon and Angola in November, before playing in the Arab Cup in December, and then departing for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon scheduled for next January.

The previous coach, Hossam El-Badry, was sacked 24 hours after equalizing with Gabon after he faced severe criticism for his unpersuasive display, despite achieving all the targets by qualifying to the 2021 AFCON and his unbeaten run in his two-year-stay.

The Argentinean tactician Hector Cuper was also dismissed because of his unconvincing performance, after reaching the 2019 AFCON final and qualifying for the 2018 World Cup which Egypt hasn’t been participating at since approximately 28 years.

The Pharaohs have already defeated Angola 1-0 in the first round of the group stage of the World Cup qualifiers and equalized against Gabon 1-1.

(For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO_Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports.)