Mahmoud El Gohary is a legend in Egyptian sport. He is the only man to have won the Cup of Nations as both a player and a manager. He steered the Pharaohs to their one and only World Cup appearance, at Italia '90. And he was behind the introduction of professional football in his country.

- How would you evaluate the current team you have now who is travelling with you to Mali?

We are currently in a preparation and training phase since we are currently is a very difficult period.

All the professional players coming from abroad must have a break to rest for a while so that they can be fit. Other professional players have not participated with their teams that much which means they need intensive training.

In addition to the fact that our local players are not in their best form due to the fact that our local league is not that strong. Another problem that we are currently facing is that many of our key players are injured so they are under treatment.

- Are you satisfied with the current standard of the team?

I am very satisfied with the 22 players that I have chosen since they are the best in Egypt at the moment.

- Don't you miss the young player Mohamed El Yamanee who was the best player in the Egyptian youth team in Argentina 2001?

After Argentina El Yamanee had a terrible accident which made him undergo a long period of medical treatment. As a result he only played a very small number of matches with his team during the last six months, which meant he needed a very intensive training period.
I was hoping to have him since I wanted to have a team consisting of three different generations. I already have another young player from the youth team, Gamal Hamza, but I would have liked to have him too since he is a very talented player, however his team refused to let him come to play with the National team.

- What are your expectations for the Egyptian National team in the coming African Cup of Nations in Mali?

This is a very difficult question for any coach because the African continent at the moment has one of the strongest competitions in the world. I feel that the competition between the countries in Africa is harder than the competition among the European countries.

Of course Europe has very strong countries but currently the rivalry in Africa is mostly between professional African players who play in Europe. There are mainly 10 teams who are considered very powerful and ironically if we look at the four groups we will see that on one side in the first and second group there are: South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco and Algeria. On the other side in the third and fourth group we will find Cameroon, Senegal, Tunisia, who all qualified to the World Cup in addition to Egypt and Ivory Coast and these are all great teams.

- What are the reasons behind eliminating Ibrahim Hassan from the list of 22 players that you have chosen to travel to Mali?

Unfortunately Ibrahim had a very bad bruise during the last game with Mali in his foot. When the doctors performed X-rays they found out that it was very serious and that he should rest for two weeks before he can play again, which made me very sadly eliminate him from the list and that is why announcing the list was delayed until very late at night.

- This brings me to Ibrahim's twin brother Hossam Hassan. What's the story behind him travelling to France for a check up?

Hossam already left to France and he is definitely playing with us in Mali. However, this check up is just to assure him that he is OK since he was very worried about his injury in spite of the fact that all doctors and X-rays proved that there was absolutely nothing wrong.

- What in your opinion are the reasons behind the failure of the Egyptian team to qualify to the World Cup?

The Egyptian national team was in its best form this year even much better than in 1990 when we did qualify to the World Cup in Italy.

We were the best team in the group and one of the best teams in all the groups but we had three vital drawbacks. The first was wasting our chances, we squandered 35 chances in 8 games! This is an enormous ratio; about 4.5 lost chances per game and we paid for that dearly.

Another problem we had was the weakness in our defence line on the individuals' level. There were many individual mistakes from the defence players and that is due to the senility of our local competitions.

Finally the last reason is relative since we fell under the misjudgment of the referees in three different definite cases; once against Morocco in Morocco, another in Senegal against Senegal, and another in Cairo against Morocco. We were very unlucky when one correct goal was cancelled against in Senegal, when we were not given three definite penalty kicks in Morocco and when one penalty kick was not awarded to us in Cairo against Morocco.

These three unquestionable mistakes from the referees against us were the reason behind the best team NOT winning.

- When I spoke with Hany Ramzy and Hossam Hassan they both agreed that the new generation is very talented but they lack the discipline and determination, which the older generations had. Do you agree?

In very simple words this phenomena is apparent all over Africa. Take a look at what's happening in Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria so it is a fact that the new younger football players now want to have everything as soon as possible. They don't want to make much effort; they want things the easy way. This is apparent in the lack of determination, trying to avoid any extra effort.

Therefore I do agree with them but I have to add that this is happening everywhere not just in Egypt, you can see that in Italy and Spain for example and these are the best football schools in the world. This is a problem of the current generation as a whole in all fields, not just football.