“We played very well and we deserved the victory with an even bigger score,” Queiroz was quoted as saying by the Egyptian Football Association’s Facebook page after the game.

Egypt secured a 2-0 win over Liberia on 1 October in coach Queiroz’s debut before beating Libya twice in the World Cup qualifiers double test.

After Friday’s 1-0 home win over Libya, Egypt completed a double over the Mediterranean Knights with an emphatic 3-0 win in Benghazi on Monday, moving within touching distance of a place in the final World Cup qualifying playoff.

“I congratulate my players for their performance and also for deploying the coach’s strategy. We deserved a bigger score and we want to remain as our group leaders until the end of the qualifiers,” the 68-year-old Portuguese coach explained.

After Monday’s win, Egypt top Group F with 10 points, four ahead of Libya with only two matches remaining. Gabon is third with four points, with Angola lying at the bottom with three.

With two matches to spare in the qualifiers, Queiroz believes that his team still has a lot of work to do to ensure a place at the 2022 World Cup finals.

“We still have a lot of work to do to reach the perfect performance. We won in the two games, scored many goals and we played good football. Our challenge now is to improve ourselves,” said the former Portugal, Iran and Colombia coach.

“I didn’t perform magic with the Egypt team. The winning spirit already existed inside the players’ hearts. They became unrestricted inside the pitch and they began to have fun in both training and matches, and that gave them more freedom to express themselves,” the coach included.  

The Pharaohs need just one win from their final two games against Angola and Gabon next month to ensure that they finish on top and reach the final two-legged playoff for a place in next year's World Cup finals in Qatar.

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