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Hold my pint......

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Another day, and another fantastic World Cup factoid. But this one has me dusting off the Puma Kings and thinking there’s still a chance that I can make the big time....

Group A kicks off in earnest on Thursday, followed by Egypt vs Uruguay on Friday. Now I haven’t seen much (read none) of Egypt’s warm up games, but learnt today that their first choice goalie - Essam El Hadary is 45 years old! (Forty five) (as in, five less than fifty). Fantastic stuff. The last goalie of this vintage was eating pies on the bench in the FA Cup....

It’s been a good few years since Egypt were last in the World Cup, and now I have trepidation that their campaign will collapse not at the twinge of a Mo Salah shoulder, but from a wiley Russian coach telling his strikers to “just kick it low, there’s no way he’s getting down to those”.

I’m fairly sure this will be a World Cup record, eclipsing the youthful shimmy of Roger Milla by some distance. Poor Mo ..having what can only be described as a ridiculously strong season, reaching the brink of greatness only to find he’s being followed around by dodgy keepers at his club and his national team has a production line of keepers as dry as the Sahara..

Righto, I’m off to revisit the England standby list to make sure Gareth hasn’t snuck Alan Shearer in there....



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