Wow, what a sight it was for the sore eyes, our glorious Olympic team thrashing Ethiopia 4-0 in an epic battle in Alexandria.

The mighty Pharaohs came from a two-goal deficit in the first-leg in Addis Ababa to overcome the Ethiopian warriors and secure passage to the African Games in Algeria.

Just in case you haven’t noticed, I am being sarcastic!

Despite the four goals against minnows Ethiopia, the Egyptians were far from impressive against such a low-caliber team.

Just to recap chronologically, on February 25th, the Egyptian Olympic team’s hopes of reaching the finals in Algeria were jeopardized after the team surprisingly succumbed to a 2-0 away defeat.

Of course, everything from the high altitude in Ethiopia to the condition of the pitch and everyone, from the pilot of the plane that took the national team to Addis Ababa to the janitor in the dressing room was to blame for the defeat, but not the players nor coach Eduardo Vingada.

Therefore, it became a national duty to help the Egyptian team redeem themselves against the unstoppable Ethiopians and salvage whatever is left of our pride.

The Egyptian Football Association decided to postpone the 23rd round of the local league to help the young Olympians prepare, even though one day earlier they had ruled against postponing a single game for Ahli, who were returning from Zimbabwe to face Masri, in the same competition.

After six days of intense preparations, the Egyptians emerged on the pitch ready to dismantle their opposition, and so they did.

But anyone who followed the game would tell you that the Ethiopian team was not much of an opposition, and that Egypt’s players, especially their strikers, are far from being the superstars we made them to be.

Egypt’s strikers squandered almost a dozen goals, and the defense proved to be lacking the backbone needed to deny the occasional Ethiopian threats.

What everyone seems to be missing is that if Egypt were playing a slightly stronger competition, we would be lamenting our embarrassing defeat and exit by now.

Egyptians tend to make a fuss about small matters, like facing Ethiopia, but why?

This generation of Egyptian footballers has put the ‘F’ in failure.

They are a combination of players from the generation that disgraced Egypt at the 2005 Under-20 World Cup in Holland and another that has even failed to progress to the finals of the competition that will be staged in Canada this summer.

Yes they are fit, fast, and well built, but they might as well be basketball or volleyball players. They lack the harmony, mentality and skill of previous generations.

So, given the level of performance by this Olympic team, it seems safe to assume that Egypt, once again, will not feature in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which in turn does not make us look forward to retaining our African Nations Cup title and needless to say puts a huge question mark on the fate of the Pharaohs in making the 2010 World Cup finals.