Saudi Arabia – Egypt

It’s time for the two underdogs in Group A of the World Cup to meet. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are meeting at the Volgograd Arena in Volgograd. These are our vip soccer predictions for the game.

How we said, both teams will leave the World Cup after the end of the group stage. They have lost their first two games in the tournament against Russia and Uruguay, which means that the best they can do now is winning the third place in the group. Saudi Arabia will try to prove that they are not among the weakest teams in the competition, while Egypt are chasing their first ever win at the World Cup.

All Saudis remember what happened in 1994, when the Green Falcons shocked the world and reached the 1/8-finals of the World Cup. But now thing are different and Saudi Arabia are still without a single goal being scored in Russia. When they appointed the Copa America winner Juan Antonio Pizzi for a manager, this showed a lot of ambition. But sadly for the Green Falcons, things didn’t go well for them in the first two rounds of the World Cup.

We can call Egypt unlucky at this World Cup. The fact that Mohamed Salah injured himself during the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid was a huge blow for the Pharaohs. Mo Salah missed the first game against Uruguay and he was clearly out of shape against Russia, despite of scoring a goal from a penalty kick. If Mo Salah was healthy and fit for the World Cup, surely Egypt would have done a lot better in the competition. They are very reliable on Mohamed Salah, which is completely understandable when you have a player of this quality.

There’s something very curious about the Egyptian team at this moment. If the goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary gets a few minutes against Saudi Arabia, he will break the record for the oldest player to participate at the World Cup. Against the Green Falcons he would be 45 years and 161 days old. That’s really impressive.

Saudi Arabia’s manager Juan Antonio Pizzi have some serious problems before the match. Three of his team’s defenders are doubtful for the clash – Taiseer Al Jassam, Omar Hawsawi and Mansour Al-Harb. This means that Pizzi would have make some changes in his starting line-up and choose the optimal variant.

Compared to the 0-5 loss against Russia in the opening game, Saudi Arabia did much better against Uruguay, losing with just 0-1. Their performance against La Celeste was much better, but they remain without any goals scored from the beginning of the tournament.

If the Green Falcons want to finish third in the group, they will have to beat Egypt. That’s because the Pharaohs have a better goal difference and the draw would allow them to remain third in the group. But despite of this, we don’t expect that any of these two teams will play for a draw. This is their last game at the 2018 World Cup, so they’d want to bring joy to their fans. And this can happen only if they attack and score some goals. Sometimes the most interesting matches happen when both teams do not have anything to lose anymore.

This is a first meeting between these two sides since 1999, when they both participated at the Confederations Cup. Then the match didn’t end very well for the Egyptians, who suffered a heavy 1-5 defeat.

These are our vip soccer predictions for the World Cup game from Group A between Saudi Arabia  and Egypt in Volgograd.