Salah to us is like Messi to Argentina: Cuper

CAIRO – 24 March 2018: Despite the last-minute loss, Cuper was satisfied by Egypt’s performance against Portugal.

Egypt lost 2-1 to Portugal in a friendly game on Friday night in Letzigrund Stadium, Zurich. Egypt was leading the score in the game until the added time when Cristiano Ronaldo scored two goals to grant his team a victory.

"The disappointment is that we lost in the final minutes of the game, but we benefited much from this meeting," Cuper said in the post-match press conference.

Egypt played a good game against the European champions led by Cristiano Ronaldo. They were solid at defense and were able to pass the ball and control the game.

"It was a game against one of the best teams in the world; we needed to test ourselves against world-class teams. We learnt from the game and will be looking forward to avoiding certain mistakes in the forthcoming period," Cuper added.

Portugal was dangerous and gave several chances, but they were cleared by the Egyptian defense. Portugal scored twice through Ronaldo in the additional time, which served as an alert for the Egyptian players to concentrate until the end of the game.

Cuper talked about Salah’s importance to the Egyptian team and compared the Premier League’s top scorer to Barcelona and Argentina’s star, Lionel Messi.

"Yes Salah's importance to us is like Messi's importance to Argentina but there is a whole team behind Salah helping him shine,” Cuper said.

"I hope he one day becomes the world's best player; he deserves it," he added.

Egypt is set to meet Greece on Tuesday in another friendly game at Letzigrund Stadium.