African champions Egypt have put themselves in a good position to advance in the Confederations Cup with a 1-0 win over world champions Italy on June 18th. The result just goes to show that football matches are won, lost and drawn on the pitch and nowhere else.

Egypt deserved to win and perhaps other teams and managers (such as Iraq) should be forced to watch a tape of the game to realize that if you put a little effort into and actually attempt to win a game, anything can happen. Italy won’t soon forget it as it was their first ever loss to an African nation in 15 games. It also shows that the gap between African and European teams is quickly narrowing.

All four teams in Group B, Italy, Egypt, Brazil, and the USA still have a chance to make it into the semi finals. Brazil has won both games and sits on top of the group with six points, followed by Italy, and Egypt with three each and America with none. However, America plays Egypt next on Sunday (June 21st) and Italy takes on Brazil. There can be no match fixing here. Brazil can go through with a point, but a draw might not do Italy any good if Egypt wins. It should make for quite a gripping pair of games.

The USA was beaten 3-0 June 18th by Brazil and are a minus five in goal differential, it would take a miracle for them to go through, but miracles have been known to happen every so often.

It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that Egypt was able to take all three points against Italy as they lost in the last minute to Brazil in their opening match. An unmarked Mohamed Homos sealed the win for the underdogs as he powerfully headed home the winning goal off of a corner in the 39th minute.

Of course Egypt’s veteran goalie Essam Al Hadari had to make several saves to earn the win, especially in the second half, but that’s his job and he did it well. It also took a little luck and some help from the wood work as Vincenzo Iaquinta rattled the crossbar with a long-ranger for Italy with a few minutes to go in the game.

Italy’s manager Marcello Lippi took the loss in stride though and said, “All the teams today are very good. You always have to be at your best. We tried some different things. It didn’t go very well. Their keeper made three or four very difficult saves.”

Lippi might regret making five changes from the side that beat America 3-1 in the first game though. Captain Fabio Cannavaro came back and played in his 124th game for his country, which is just two shy of Paolo Maldini’s Italian record of 126.

Whoever goes through on Sunday will have to face Spain and either host nation South Africa, or Iraq as the two semi finalist from Group A. That group will be decided on June 20th. Spain has already clinched a top-two spot with six out of six points.