The World Cup round-of-32 match between Egypt and Australia was definitely not a footballing spectacle. Even so, we fans certainly couldn't complain about a lack of entertainment.
Shortly before the penalty shootout, more precisely in the 119th minute, Socceroos coach Tony Popovic made an unusual move: he replaced his outstanding first-choice keeper Patrick Beach with the experienced Mathew Ryan. He probably wanted to throw the Egyptian penalty takers off their game.
A few minutes later, however, one thing was clear: that idea backfired badly! The North Africans reacted in a flash and used the break between extra time and the shootout to watch videos of Ryan's most recent penalties faced with him between the posts.
Quite obviously, the Egyptians drew the right conclusions from that short video session. They converted each and every one of their four penalties and shortly afterwards celebrated reaching the World Cup round of 16 for the first time in their history.
Aussie coach Popovic, on the other hand, very much ended up outsmarting himself in classic fashion...
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
