Less experienced Egypt loses to Ronaldo’s Portugal

CAIRO – 24 March 2018: 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.

Egypt manager Hector Cuper preferred to count on the same players that won Egypt the World Cup qualification, so he started the game with Mohamed El-Shennawy, Ahmed Fathi, Ali Gabr, Ahmed Hegazy, Mohamed Abdel-Shafy, Mohamed Elneny, Tarek Hamed, Mahmoud Hassan known as Trezeguet, Abdallah El-Said, Mohamed Salah and Ahmed Hassan, known as Koka.

Mohamed El-Shennawy was the new face in the Egyptian line-up, as he won a starting position in the game over Essam El-Hadary.

In the first half, the Pharaohs were solid at defense and kept the ball out of their area despite the Portuguese attempts to score.

In the second half, Egypt started to attack their opponent and Salah scored the first goal after 10 minutes from a strike after he received the ball from El-Said at the edge of the area.

The Egyptian defense broke all of Portugal’s attempts to score the equalizer in the remaining minutes and they were ready to celebrate the victory when Ronaldo decided to shine.



Ronaldo scored the equalizer for Portugal in the second minute of the four added minutes through a header to make the score 1-1.

Ronaldo scored again a minute later from a header to win the game 2-1 for his team.