Exactly one week after Egypt were kicked out of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), they kicked out their coach.
On Sunday, the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) announced it had fired Portuguese coach Rui Vitoria after a dismal showing in the AFCON currently being held in Cote d’Ivoire.
Egypt failed to win a single game in the tournament, drawing three times in the group stage with identical 2-2 scores before being knocked out by DR Congo, formerly Zaire, in a dramatic penalty shootout in the round of 16.
Vitoria never stood a chance of remaining with the team that has won a record seven AFCONs (Cameroon are second with five) and reached the final of the 2022 edition before falling to Senegal on penalties. It would have been near impossible that Vitoria would somehow stay on after such a dreadful performance, especially since so many of his peers parted ways with their teams with the tournament still in progress. Hosts Cote d’Ivoire, Algeria, Tunisia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Gambia all either showed their coaches the door or left of their own accord following their tournament eliminations. Some were fired even before they could take the plane out of Abidjan (at least the EFA had the courtesy to wait until Vitoria made it to Cairo to pack his bag).
Vitoria was not going to be the exception. Calls for his immediate removal came fast and loud, from former players, fans in the millions, the media and social media. Even the EFA, while not saying it outright, appeared willing to join the chorus of boos, issuing a rare public apology over Egypt’s performance.
Before the tournament began, it was a given that Egypt and Ghana would vie for the top of Group B which included lesser-knowns Cape Verde and Mozambique. After the group stage, it was Cape Verde that surprisingly but deservedly finished first.
Vitoria’s fingerprints were all over the embarrassing early exit. He chose players who were not fit to wear the jersey of the national team, decided not to take players he should have, and placed some players on the field in positions they were not accustomed to. Some players who made the trip should have been given a chance but hardly played or were introduced too late in games or in the tournament in general. He also opted for players who have not been consistently playing for their clubs.
Some setbacks were out of Vitoria’s control. In only the second game, he lost the team’s skipper and Liverpool ace Mohamed Salah to a hamstring injury and his first-choice goalkeeper Mohamed Al-Shinnawi, often cited as the best African-based net minder, suffered a dislocated shoulder in game three.
In fairness, Egypt under Vitoria did not have a bad record, recording 12 victories, five draws, and suffering only one defeat. This included their two out of two wins at the start of the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign.
But those victories, either in AFCON qualifications or 2026 World Cup qualifications, flattered to deceive. Most if not all the wins were against sub-par countries.
Even the famous 2-1 win against Belgium, at the time seeded No 2 in the world, in a friendly warm-up shortly before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, was attributed to the Belgians not taking the match seriously.
Vitoria took charge of the Egyptian national team in July 2022, signing a contract reportedly worth $200,000 a month that would have taken him through to the 2026 World Cup.
That this was his first job as a national team coach after a career based solely on coaching mainly Portuguese clubs is on the EFA.
No sooner had the EFA terminated Vitoria’s contract than it announced it was looking for another foreign coach, and espoused two candidates, both French: Herve Renard and Sebastien Desabre.
Renard, 55, was the first coach to win two AFCON titles with two countries: Zambia in 2012 and Cote d’Ivoire in 2015.
He also guided Saudi Arabia to a famous 2-1 win over eventual tournament winner Argentina at the 2022 World Cup. In the current AFCON Renard was sought by the Ivorian federation as a temporary loan — a unique concept — for the country’s remaining Africa Cup games after they fired their coach — then reached the knockout stage.
Other candidate Desabre, 47, is ironically the coach of DR Congo coach which last week put Egypt to the sword.
Desabre has worked in Egypt before, at the helm of clubs Pyramids and Ismaili.
The final decision regarding Desabre’s appointment will reportedly be announced only after the conclusion of the ongoing AFCON which ends 11 February.
Seeing that Desabre could be available quite soon, it makes more sense to hire him since Egypt have a friendly tournament in March in the UAE, then the re-start of World Cup qualifiers in June against Burkina Faso.
Renard, on the other hand, has reportedly agreed to take over in Egypt once his contract as coach of the France women’s team expires. His contract includes the Olympic Games that run until nearly mid-August.
Whichever way it lands, the EFA statement had not a whiff of the possibility of naming an Egyptian as coach even though the coach who got Egypt three straight AFCON titles, an African record, is Egyptian icon Hassan Shehata.
The EFA would only go so far as to name Egyptian former star defender and manager of powerhouse Cairo club Ahly, Mohamed Youssef, as Egypt’s caretaker but made it clear Youssef would play second fiddle once a permanent foreigner was named.
Perhaps the EFA did not want a repeat of the Ehab Galal fiasco, in which local man Galal took charge of the team for just three matches before Vitoria was chosen as his successor.
Meantime, DR Congo, who ousted Egypt from this year’s AFCON, has since progressed to the semi-finals, where the Leopards face host nation Cote d’Ivoire, and Nigeria meet South Africa, on Wednesday, after Al-Ahram Weekly went to press.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 February, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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