Rome, 19 June-(ANA)-Egypt gave themselves a good chance of qualifying for the Confederations Cup semi-finals with a surprising but merited win over world champions Italy.
Mohamed Homos scored the only goal, rising to meet a well-delivered corner to direct a header in off the far post.
Despite not creating many clear-cut chances Egypt matched the Italians for work-rate and application.
Vincenzo Iaquinta struck the bar late on for Italy and Egypt keeper Essam El Hadari made a string of good saves.
After the embarrassingly one-sided earlier Group B contest between Brazil and USA, this was a much more evenly contested affair between two sides who came into the match having both scored three in their opening games of the competition.
Italy made significant changes to their attacking line with young striker Giuseppe Rossi - scorer of two goals against USA after coming on as a substitute - and Vincenzo Iaquinta starting in place of regular strikers Luca Toni and Alberto Gilardino.
Rossi almost made the most of his chance early on when a poor defensive clearance gave him the opportunity to shoot but he struck it over the crossbar from 15 yards and he was then denied by a one-handed tip-over from El Hadari.(ANA)
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