Africa Cup Of Nations 2024: What To Expect From Rui Vitória Tactics With Egypt In Build-Up And Ball Progression

The Portuguese coach of the Egyptian national team, Rui Vitória, announced the final list of players who will travel to Ivory Coast to participate in the Africa Cup of Nations last Saturday.

As soon as he finished the press conference,

the exclusion of Al Ahly SC centre-back Yasser Ibrahim, who recently shone in the Club World Cup.

The final list in total is:

Goalkeepers: Mohamed El-Shennawy (Ahly), Mohamed Sobhi (Zamalek), Ahmed El-Shennawy (Pyramids FC), Mohamed Abu Gabal (NBE Club).

Defenders: Ahmed Hegazi (Ittihad Jeddah- Saudi Arabia), Mohamed Abdelmonem, Mohamed Hani (Ahly), Ali Gabr, Osama Galal, Ahmed Sami, Mohamed Hamdi (Pyramids FC), Omar Kamal (Modern Future FC) and Ahmed Fattouh (Zamalek).

Midfielders: Emam Ashour, Ahmed Nabil Koka, Marwan Attia (Ahly), Hamdi Fathi (Al-Wakrah SC – Qatar), Mohamed Elneny (Arsenal – England), Ahmed Sayed “Zizo” (Zamalek) and Mahmoud Hamada (Masry).

Strikers: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool – England), Mostafa Fathi (Pyramids FC), Omar Marmoush (Eintracht Frankfurt – Germany), Mahmoud “Trezeguet” Hassan (Trabzonspor – Turkey), Mostafa Mohamed (FC Nantes – France), Mahmoud ‘Kahraba’ Abdel-Moneim (Ahly) and Ahmed ‘Kouka’ Hassan (Pendikspor – Turkey).

The training camp will start today, January 2nd, and run until the 7th when Egypt will play a friendly match against Tanzania.

The players will then have a rest day on January 8th and travel to Ivory Coast on January 9th.

In this tactical analysis, we will try to explain Rui Vitória’s decisions in choosing this list, but we should first mention his philosophy and strategy.

He simply said that in the press conference, where he said that we played against many teams with different levels, and in all of them, our philosophy was clear: to maintain possession, to try to recover the ball quickly when we lose it, and always to try to keep our team organised and balanced.

Here, we should remember Pep Guardiola‘s book “Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola was the coach of Bayern Munich, while Rui Vitória was Benfica’s coach.

Guardiola seems to have admired the tactics of the Eagles’ coach, classifying the Portuguese team as “the best defensive organisation in Europe”.

See the excerpt from the book: “It’s a team worthy of Arrigo Sacchi, which has the best defensive organisation in Europe.

But it is not a defensive team.

Place the rearmost line very high and press without stopping.

He leaves no space between lines and has speedy forwards.

In Germany, England, and Spain, people don’t watch the Portuguese league, so no one values Benfica, but it is a team worthy of Sacchi. ”

Defender selections

Despite the uproar about the Portuguese coach’s choices in the centre-back position, he was very clear in the press conference, and we will try to simplify that.

He said he would need two players above 190 cm and two young players for the future.

He also mentioned that Ahmed Sami executes his instructions precisely, reminding him of the Swiss watch.

Let’s explain all that simply.

He has chosen five centre-backs: Ahmed Hegazi, Mohamed Abdelmonem, Ali Gabr, Ahmed Samy, and Osama Galal. The problem is that he didn’t call Yasser Ibrahim.

Ahmed Hegazy and Mohamed Abdelmonem will most likely be the main defenders, and the problem lies in the substitutes.

Here, we recall Vitoria’s words about the importance of having two players exceeding 190 cm, and we think that this is the reason for Ali Gabr.

Perhaps his point of view is that if the opponent relies on long balls, he must have a tall defender, significantly when advancing in the score, and perhaps changing the method to five in the back.

Looking at the picture below, you will find that Ali Gabr is impressive in the aerial duels won.

However, the problem lies in the defensive duels and positioning, a combination of tackles and interceptions, with low numbers.

Hence comes the fans’ anger, but Vitoria’s explanation is logical, and he may not involve him except in the case of the low block in the last minutes of the match.

Ali Gabr Radar Map

We come to the second sentence he said, which is the importance of having young centre-backs to be the national team’s future.

The conditions apply to Mohamed Abdelmonem and Osama Galal, who are 24 and 26 years old, respectively.

Therefore, we believe that the competition in the selection was between Yasser Ibrahim and Ahmed Sami, who Vitoria describes as the Swiss watch. Both are 31 years old.

Therefore, we will focus on exploring what distinguishes Ahmed Sami from Yasser Ibrahim, which may not be apparent to the fans.

In the following two photos, you can see that Yasser Ibrahim is much better in most defending terms, while Ahmed Samy is much better in passing and attacking skills.

Here, we should remember Rui Vitória’s tactics strategy of keeping possession, which nowadays is a must, not a choice, for attacking-style coaches.

Yasser Ibrahim Radar Map

Ahmed Samy Radar Map

Let’s take Mohamed Abdelmonem, whom most of us agree is the best defender in the Egyptian Premier League, as a reference.

We will compare both of them to Mohamed Abdelmonem using our xGOLD tool.

First, we start with Yasser Ibrahim in the first photo below.

We found the similarity is 66%.

Yasser Ibrahim is better in aerials and defensive duels, but Abdelmonem is better in dribbles and most of the passing skills, which are essential in this style of play.

In the second photo below, Ahmed Samy is close to him in passing abilities and even better in some of them.

Yasser Ibrahim Vs Mohamed Abdelmonem Radar Map

Ahmed Samy Vs Mohamed Abdelmonem Radar Map

Mohamed Abdelmonem Scouting Report

Moving on, we’ll assess the defensive selection’s passing skills using match footage to highlight why these players made Vitória’s final squad and how they’ll contribute to the team’s early in-possession play.

We start with Abdelmonem to see how excellent his passing and attacking skills are, and then we go to Ahmed Samy and Yasser Ibrahim to see if they have the same quality.

First, we show his ability to see passes and then his pass range.

You can see below that when the ball is passed back to him, he scans around him to find the empty targeted spaces.

Then, he receives the ball from one touch by his left leg and passes an accurate longball simply by his right leg.

In the following two photos, we show the same ability but also with an excellent passing range.

The second skill we talk about is dribbling.

You can see below that he received an inaccurate pass behind him, but he looked around him before receiving the ball to decide his target, and then he was under pressure, as in the photo below.

As shown in the two photos below, he has no problem dribbling horizontally to open his path.

The third and most important skill we will discuss is composure with the ball; you can see below that he has no options.

However, he didn’t panic when the left side was closed and opened his body to the other side to find the empty area, as shown below.

Again, he is in a problematic situation, receiving the ball in a bad position, but he has no problem receiving the ball by his chest.

Then he leaves it falling to scan around him while the ball falls and then passes an accurate, complex, long pass.

This pass puts his team in an excellent attacking situation, as shown below.

The fourth skill is using both feet to make it easy for him to deal with different situations and break the pressure.

Any possible pass with his right foot is closed, so he directly passes the ball with his left foot without modifying his body position, saving time to break the pressure.

In the semi-final of the Super Cup, this skill makes Al-Ahly score an important goal to win.

He intercepted the ball, found the pass option, and passed the ball with his left foot as simply as to start the counterattack, which led to Emam Ashour’s goal.

Ahmed Samy Scouting Report

Now, we move to Ahmed Samy to check these skills.

As shown below, he displays excellent vision to read the game and pass the ball as the space exists at the right time with a good and accurate long pass.

Here, we explain again the importance of scanning behaviour at the right moment before receiving the ball to quickly decide whether to pass the ball in the other direction.

At the same time, fans may not notice that during the game.

Regarding the second skill, he is good at dribbling to get out of difficult situations and open passing options, as shown below.

Coming to the third skill, a teammate passes the ball back.

At the same time, the opponent performs a side pressing, as shown in the first photo below, but he doesn’t panic, so he makes the ball past him to have a moment to scan and evaluate the situation.

At the same time, a player is pressing him, but he keeps calm until the right-back moves to be a good passing option and then passes the ball to him accurately.

You can see below that he has no option to pass, but he opens a passing path with the ball with his left foot and then plays the ball accurately with his weak foot, as shown in the three photos below.

Yasser Ibrahim Scouting Report

Now, we come to Yasser Ibrahim to evaluate him in these skills.

In the two photos below, it is clear that he has problems seeing passing options.

Although he has three passing options, he passes the ball longly to the opponent in the middle.

The same problem is shown here.

His teammate, in yellow, asks him to pass an easy pass to break the pressure, but he doesn’t overthink clearing the ball to the opponent.

For the second skill, he could dribble a little forward to open the passing lane to his teammate in the middle or pass the ball to the other centre-back with his left.

For the fourth skill, he chose to pass the ball longly to make it easy for the opponent to get it.

Regarding the third skill, he panics when he receives a ball coming back in a tight space, as shown below.

He has two passing options in green but chooses the same long ball.

Like Samy and Abdelmonem, he can make the ball runs while dropping back to open his body shape to see his teammates, but in tight situations like this, he prefers to clear the ball without even scanning first.

Conclusion

In this scout report, we have tried to understand Rui Vitória’s coaching style and thinking before choosing the list of the final squad travelling to Ivory Coast to participate in the Africa Cup of Nations, which starts on January 13th.

In this analysis, we have shown why Rui Vitória’s formation chose Ahmed Samy, Osama Galal, and Ali Gabr instead of Yasser Ibrahim.