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For two nations that have only met in senior men’s internationals twice before, Australia and Egypt have a wild history.
As the Socceroos and the Pharaohs prepare to meet in the World Cup’s Round of 32 on Saturday morning, many Australians cannot help but cast their mind back 16 years to a crazy encounter in Cairo that was tarnished by alleged match-fixing.
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Corruption was an overarching theme of that 2010 friendly.
After the World Cup in South Africa, the Socceroos spent the following international windows circumnavigating the globe trying to win votes for the nation’s failed bid to host the 2022 World Cup, which FIFA awarded to Qatar in one of the biggest bribery scandals in sporting history.
Then Socceroos boss Holger Osieck’s side travelled to Switzerland, Poland and Slovenia before hosting Paraguay in Sydney and making a trip to Egypt.
All the while, billionaire businessman Frank Lowy and Football Australia officials tried to woo their counterparts from other federations.
As ultimately fruitless conversations took place in corporate boxes, something suspicious was happening on the pitch.
Egypt had thoroughly outplayed Australia and led 2-0 in the dying minutes of the match.
When everyone expected the friendly to whittle out, much to everyone’s bemusement, Bulgarian referee Anton Genov blew the whistle and awarded a penalty against Socceroos captain Lucas Neill.
It is not the most talked about penalty ever given against Neill, but it was certainly eyebrow raising as the defender appeared to have hardly touched Mohamed Nagy.
Commentator Simon Hill summed it up on the broadcast by saying he had “seen more push and shove in the playground”.
Mohamed Zidan then converted from the spot for Egypt and the Australians were left baffled.
“I do not know what kind of penalty it was, the only person who saw the penalty was the referee,” Osieck said post-match.
“Nobody knew what was going on, only God and the referee.”
People certainly had their suspicions, but four years later it all made sense.
Convicted match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal released a memoir and spelled out how his criminal network had rigged the match to ensure three goals would be scored.
“The game went according to plan,” the Singaporean wrote. “The Bulgarian ref awarded a single penalty in the final minutes of Egypt vs Australia, which ended 3-0 in favour of the Pharaohs.”
Permual said he pocketed US$200,000 from his syndicate’s US$1 million winnings as a result of three goals being scored in the match.
He also claimed to have won hundreds of thousands more via his own side bets.
“I had shared the information on Egypt’s match with a friend, telling him to throw 500 thousand dollars on it for me,” Permual wrote.
“‘Are you very sure?’ my friend asked. ‘500,000’.
“‘Yes, don’t worry,’ I reassured him. ‘The final whistle will not come before three goals are scored.’”
Perumal alleges that he fixed up to a 100 football matches around the world and won $US5 million as a result.
But he lost all his money gambling.
Before Permual’s downfall, his network clearly had influence, however.
The appointment of Genov as the referee for the match was a curious one given less than a year earlier he has been investigated by UEFA after a plunge of bets on at least three goals being scored and high number of penalties awarded in a friendly between Macedonia and Canada.
In that 2009 game, the Bulgarian awarded four second half penalties as Macedonia won 3-0 in Skopje.
Permual said he had nothing to do with that game, but knew who was.
“Why the f*** did you give away so many penalties?” he wrote that they allegedly asked the referee.
“If the player misses, just say that the goalkeeper moved before the kick and retake the penalty.”
That is why him and his network gave Genov strict instructions.
“Anton,” he was warned, “You just came back from your suspension, so don’t do anything funny. Just wait for the right time,” Permual wrote.
When Permual’s allegations became public through the publishing of his memoir, the Australians understandably were livid.
Goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, who was unable to save the dubious penalty, was interviewed on the ABC’s current affairs program ‘7.30’ in 2014 and demanded action.
“I think there should be an investigation from the top. FIFA should investigate it,” he said.
“The game in itself was very much a game that was one-sided and in a game which you thought the officials probably didn’t referee it in the fairest way,” Schwarzer added.
“It’s hard to take when you’re there playing it, but also it’s very difficult to read after the event and I suppose it justifies your beliefs at the time.”
Former Socceroo Luke Wilkshire also played in that game and in a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald said: “I remember obviously the penalty. It was soft.
“Back then, you just had to brush it off and get on with things,” Wilkshire continued. “It’s more so when you look back at it that you question some decisions. But obviously in modern-day football, those sorts of things wouldn’t happen now.
“I had no idea. Maybe we were blind. You just don’t want to think that anything like that could happen, or should happen in the sport. I definitely wasn’t aware of it. But the game itself, I just remember that it was a tough contest. It was a tough place to go, but definitely wasn’t one of our best games.”
There was no such black mark when the two nations last met a global tournament, however.
That came at the Tokyo Olympic Games five years ago when Egypt dashed the Olyroos’ Olympic dream 2-0.
The Australians needed a draw in their final group game to advance to the knockouts after stunning Argentina earlier in the tournament.
The Egyptians broke Australian hearts, however, with six players who are in the squad this World Cup featuring that game in Tokyo.
Harry Souttar, Connor Metcalfe and Cammy Devlin all played for Australia that night.
“I remember that,” Metcalfe said when speaking to reporters on Sunday.
“It actually feels like a blur, to be honest.
“They were quite a big physical team. I just remember it being really humid and hot and we didn’t play our best game.
“They ruined our dream. So, yeah, I guess you could say it’s a bit of a revenge, personally.”
Australia will certainly be hoping for revenge for that Olympic meeting and the corrupt Cairo clash.
If history is to repeat at the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, the Socceroos will be hoping it is a recreation of the first men’s international game between the two countries.
At the 1987 Presidents Cup in South Korea, Australia claimed bragging rights in a penalty shootout after the match ended in a scoreless draw.
Now, that would add an incredible new chapter to this short rivalry.
