Towards Preparing a National Team to Compete for the World Cup
Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes:
The Egyptian football team performed well in some matches of the Africa Cup of Nations, in which it won all three points, and it succeeded in regaining the confidence and support of the fans for their national team, but it failed to win the championship.
After returning home, we saw many players as guests on programmes and interviews on satellite channels boasting about the most they had been able to achieve, and we do not know whether the regulations of the Football Association allow this or not.
At a time when Mohamed Salah left the stadiums of Cameroon, where the tournament was held, straight to the pitch of Liverpool FC to complete his club’s dreams and confirm his role and his determination to achieve his ambitions.
It seems that the creed of some of the national team’s players lacks dreams and ambition, so they were content with taking part in an international match or a championship we had previously won three times in a row, and before that we reached the World Cup and threatened the strongest teams with a national coach and players who had ambition, even if it did not reach the dream of the World Cup. The scene was also empty of any action to discuss the reasons for the failure and how to prepare a new national team.
Preparation, qualification and training are not only physical or technical, or for carrying out game plans, or psychological preparation for playing matches; they also mean building an inner drive in a national team to achieve a general goal, namely winning the World Cup, and on the way winning all the championships and matches this team plays. To achieve this we present a plan of action based on the following pillars:
1 – The intervention of the state and the Ministry of Youth and Sports in setting and announcing the general goal of winning the World Cup.
2- Calling on national and foreign experts to draw up a five- or ten-year strategy to build a young national team with the abilities, qualifications and inner drive to reach the planned goal.
3- Allocating the necessary budgets for the costs of preparation, whatever their value.
4- Choosing the sports management well, whether through the football federation or a specialized sports committee, to select the best players aged 10 – 12 according to precise, specific and clear criteria (height – weight – health and physical fitness – mental abilities.. etc.), known as the ruler.
5- Enrolling them in a military sports academy as a permanent camp for preparation and for entrenching the spirit of belonging and loyalty to the homeland as the highest and loftiest.
6- Reducing the number of foreign players contracted by Egyptian teams to “two players” at most, to raise the level of national players and give them more confidence in themselves.
7- Assigning every Premier League club to prepare, train and provide two players for the Olympic team and one player for the senior national team within a certain period, and in case of failure the club gives up its place in the Premier League.
8- Drawing up a code of conduct for coaches, players and administrators setting out sporting ethics on and off the pitch and the methods of dealing with local and international media to be complied with, and a strict set of penalties.
In this context, we must not fail to stress the need to benefit from previous experiences and to study the experiences of countries that preceded us in building a national team, such as the German national team and others, while setting precise criteria for organization, follow-up and oversight of the implementation of these plans during the period from 2022 to 2030, and no failure will be allowed.
It is time to begin preparing an Olympic team of 50 players modelled on Mohamed Salah in character, play and belonging, to represent the New Republic in international forums and championships.