SquashTalk>Columns>Team Kneipp > World Teams 2005 > Pool B Preview

The 20th Mens Teams

Pool B: [2] Egypt, [11] New Zealand, [13/18] Germany, [19/22] Iran

There’s absolutely no reason why Egypt can’t win this. England are stronger on paper and have a much greater record, but a team of Shabana, Darwish, Abbas and El Hindi should be capable of beating any team if they all fire.
Egypt has won this event once, in 1999, but their performance in 2003 was a bit lacklustre and they were more like a team of champions than a champion team. Hopefully Shabana’s spectacular display of squash to win the World Open has lit a fire in the team’s belly.

It needs to be noted that the 9 scoring system favours players like Peter Nicol and Thierry Lincou whose consistency means they’re only usually every giving away hand-outs, and not points, whereas players like Shabana and Darwish have more success with the point-a-rally scoring system where you’re rewarded for your attacking play.

Iran is making its World Teams debut and should value the experience they gain from the event and concentrate on not getting zipped.

Which means the real crux of this pool is New Zealand versus Germany. Iran won’t beat either of them, and the kiwis and die Deutschen won’t beat Egypt and shouldn’t strain a muscle trying (anyone interpreting that statement as defeatist and negative is really looking at the small picture – a valiant attempt to beat Egypt may be wonderfully executed but will only ensure the players are worn down and less likely of finishing second in the pool, meaning wasted effort on Egypt guarantees the best possible result is only 13. The statement also doesn’t mean they should just concede against Egypt either – but diving for balls and running until you pass out won’t help the team).

New Zealand is the second of three teams that have been present at every championship. They came second twice in the eighties, but finished 17th at the most recent events in Vienna and Melbourne. A victory over Germany will get them back towards the top ten, but two of their main players over the past decade – Glen Wilson and Daniel Sharplin – have both hung up the tournament towel and now coach. With three new players in the team they have an average ranking of 113. Germany’s average is over 150 so New Zealand goes into the pool as favourites to finish second.

German players, like Guinness, don’t always travel well. Their rankings don’t necessarily reflect their strength or consider how parochial the German squash community can be, meaning good players don’t travel enough to PSA tournaments to have a ranking that is representative of their standard.
Germany has three new players in the team to attempt to better their best result of 8, and their Vienna placing of 16.

Egypt finishing first is a given here, but I’m going to go out on a limb and put Germany down for an upset for second place.

Egypt
Amr Shabana
Karim Darwish
Mohamed Abbas
Wael El Hendi

New Zealand
Kashif Shuja
Callum O’Brien
Campbell Grayson
Martin Knight

Germany
Simon Rosner
Stefan Leifels
Friedrich Scheel
Johann Seestaller

Iran
Mohammed Hossein Sanaee
Majid Rouhani
Paya Ahmed Abadi
Mohammad Hossein Jafari

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