Mohamed Salah injury saga cannot mask Egypt's problems at Afcon 2023

If Egypt are to win the 34th Africa Cup of Nations, they will do so having exhausted Plan A, most of their Plan B, carried to an unlikely triumph on the wild, unpredictable winds that have swept through the tournament.

The Pharaohs, installed among the initial favourites but yet to win a fixture on their nail-biting way into the knockout phase, said farewell to captain and lodestar Mohamed Salah, who has flown to Liverpool, his club, for treatment on a muscle injury of undetermined gravity.

He departed amid scathing criticism from former colleagues and the Egyptian public. There is a strong possibility that unless his colleagues progress through their last-16 match next Tuesday and, beyond that, past a quarter-final, Salah will not return.

There are further setbacks. Goalkeeper Mohamed El Shenawy, perhaps their next most totemic player, has learnt that the shoulder injury he sustained just before the final whistle of the 2-2 draw with Cape Verde that left Egypt hanging onto second place in their group, is a dislocation, ruling him out of the rest of Afcon.

Manager Rui Vitoria and his staff are also urgently diagnosing whatever has afflicted the team’s defensive shape and very identity. In three Afcon matches so far, Egypt have conceded six goals; in three previous Cup of Nations excursions in their entirety – 17 games, including two losing finals and five tranches of extra-time – they let in just five.

“We have defensive problems,” acknowledged Vitoria. “We need to improve our performance in all aspects.”

In all three of their 2-2 draws in Abidjan, Egypt have let leads slip, twice in the case of the see-saw contest with Ghana. If there is far less embarrassment in scraping a single point from the likes of Mozambique, as