The Ahli striker, who recently recovered from a serious knee injury, produced a fine display to help the Pharaohs thrash minnows Tanzania in Aswan on Thursday in a warm up for next week's crunch meeting at home to Algeria.

He connected with a cross from left-back Sayed Moawad to head home and open the scoring after eight minutes.

A pull back from Ahmed Al-Muhammadi helped him add Egypt's third on 33 minutes after Amr Zaki doubled the lead 14 minutes earlier.

"Meteb's performance is one of our benefits tonight," Gharib told Nile Sports after the game.

"He needed to score to boost his morale ahead of the Algeria clash."

Meteb, who also set up Mohamed Barakat for Egypt's fourth goal, is likely to compete with Borussia Dortmund striker Mohamed Zidan for a place alongside Zaki against Algeria.

Gharib believes the six-time African champions, who are bidding to reach the World Cup for the first time since 1990, benefited from playing against Tanzania despite facing little opposition.

"Regardless of the caliber of our opponent, we did what we wanted to do," he said.

"The players played well and followed our instructions. We also had a chance to field many substitutes to make everything clear to coach Hassan Shehata before the Algeria tie."

Egypt need to beat Algeria by a three-goal margin at Cairo Stadium on November 14 to qualify directly for the World Cup.

A win by a two-goal margin will set up a playoff meeting with the Desert Foxes on a neutral venue.