“Ghali, Fathi and Saied may miss the trip due to visa problems. And so we called up Fathallah, Abdul-Malek and Nagah to make the trip,” Egypt’s assistant coach Shawki Gharib told FilGoal.com.

Shehata had initially named a 21-man-squad including the names of 7-European-based players in Ahmed Hassan (Anderlecht, Belgium), Sherif Ekrami (Feyenoord, Netherlands), Ibrahim Saied (Ankaragucu, Turkey), Ahmed Abou-Mosallam (Strasbourg, France), Mohamed Zidan (Hamburg, Germany), Ahmed Fathi (Sheffield Utd, England) and Hossam Ghali (Tottenham, England).

“We might have injuries or exhausted players especially from Ahli and Ismaili who have tough tasks in the African competitions and so we preferred to have a few more players,” added Gharib.

The squad will travel to France on Saturday. Ahli and Ismaili players will catch their teammates after their week-end games.