The Egyptian National Soccer Team - Has Gharib Got What It Takes?

The Egyptian national soccer team are known around the world as The Pharaohs being governed by the EFA otherwise known as the Egyptian Football Association. The team play under the marshalling of head coach Shawky Gharib. Being one of Egypt's soccer successes, Gharib played his football as a midfielder, playing for Ghazi El Mehalla and also made numerous appearances for the Egyptian National Soccer Team. He was frequently selected to the squad for the African Cup Of Nations, achieving what some consider to be cult status being a member of their 1986 title winning squad, having previously represented his country in Los Angeles at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

In 2001 his team came away with a bronze medal for coming 3rd in Argentina at the FIFA World Youth Championship whilst managing the Under 21's. He later went on to become the assistant national manager from 2004- 2011.

His stats as head coach of the Egyptian National Soccer Team, it has to be said do leave a little to be desired. Of course analysing a national manager's win ratio and comparing it to a club manager can be quite different. With a club manager, his players are playing for him week in and week out. Sometimes even twice a week. That is a lot of time to express ideas and to put a personal stamp on a team, as to how he wants them to play.

When it come to taking charge of the national side, there are far fewer games played in any one year. Some of these games will also be friendlies where sometime the cutting edge and motivation present, is of a lesser degree compared to qualifying or tournament games, so when dissecting his team's performances this too has to be taken into consideration. The players, selected for their skills and what they can bring to the team, also have to adapt to their new team mates and differing styles of play, since not all of them play together on a regular basis, bonding and blending always takes time.