From Omar Marmoush to referee François Letexier: I am indebted to you and will never forget your kindness!

Yes! Perhaps this is what Omar Marmoush is feeling. I do not know him personally, nor do I probe his intentions, but anyone in his position would surely be indebted to the French referee.

Why not?! Letexier steered the crowd's attention away from Marmoush's "naive" act in the dying moments of the match with the score at 2-2. The Egyptian national team were leading a dangerous counter-attack, 3 against 2, spearheaded by Mohamed Salah, when the Manchester City professional chose to commit every error an amateur player could make in a single moment. Words fail us in explaining it. The video alone captures the favour the French referee did the player by taking most of the attention and criticism away from him.

Search as much as you like, but you will not find any justification for Marmoush's act. He came on as a substitute with a mindset not yet affected by the tension gripping the rest of his team-mates. He is also the player who has spent years as a professional in Europe, accustomed to exactly these pressures.

You may even hold head coach Hossam Hassan responsible for bringing him on. I partly agree with you on that point, but the other side of the picture says the substitution bore fruit and we were close to scoring the third goal were it not for Marmoush's naive act!

"Why Omar Marmoush specifically, when there is Mahmoud Hassan Trezeguet who also acted selfishly in another attack?" you may say. That is what I will tell you in the following lines.

Our criticism of Marmoush isn't only about the chance he squandered against Argentina and how badly he handled it. It's about his entire showing at the 2026 World Cup.

The 27-year-old was comfortably the worst player in the Egyptian side across their five matches, and that is perhaps why Hossam Hassan left him on the bench for the Argentina clash before sending him on as a substitute. He had started every previous game.

Haitham Hassan, the Real Oviedo player, badly embarrassed his Manchester City counterpart with what he produced against both Australia and Argentina.

Not once did Marmoush pick out a team-mate with a decisive pass throughout the tournament, nor did he score. He created three chances that went nowhere and took five shots, only two of them on target. Strangely, he also fluffed a clear opening against Australia, a miss that helped drag the tie to a penalty shootout, then compounded it with his "naive" behaviour against Argentina.

A shameful return for a man who wants to be Egypt's leading star. Yes, that is the picture Marmoush painted at the World Cup. He delivered his worst version on the pitch just as the players plying their trade in the Egyptian league are shining.

This isn't even just about the numbers, though his role is measured by numbers above all. Watch how he handled the ball every time it reached him. It kept ending up at the feet of the opposition. In the end, Marmoush was left with the "king of dribbles" tag the foreign press handed him after the first round, and from there his World Cup was over.

This one's for Omar Marmoush, who turned up at the World Cup as though he'd missed the years his captain Mohamed Salah spent under heavy fire, hit with accusations of "looking down on the Egypt national team".

At least Salah faced those charges as Liverpool's number one star, with everything he'd won on Europe's pitches behind him. The point is this: he has something that might tip him towards arrogance, if those accusations held any truth in the first place.

But what about you, Marmoush? You arrived as a substitute at Manchester City, one Pep Guardiola barely recognises, and you've achieved nothing close to what Salah has. So what are you leaning on with this deliberate insistence on clinging to the ball and dribbling more than the situation demands every time it reaches you?

Calling Marmoush arrogant says more about his abilities, which everyone reads better than he does, than it does about his intentions. The angle closest to our reading is different. He came wanting to tell the world he's Mohamed Salah's heir on the global stage, now that the Liverpool journey has ended and talk swirls of a possible international retirement.

Marmoush backed his own ability to be the player "who produces the moment". It let him down. Betting on the collective never loses, even when you're extraordinary. Only Lionel Messi can wager on himself and outweigh the team.

We don't blame Marmoush for wanting to leave his mark on the global event. But, man, you spent the group stage with that mentality and it got you nowhere. So why carry it into the round of 32 and the round of 16?

These lines are not meant to tear Omar Marmoush apart. He will remain one of our stars on the pitches of Europe, a player we are proud of, one who reached Manchester City through his own effort and sweat. His abilities deserve every respect and appreciation.

But perhaps this will be the wake-up call he needs. It could rouse him from the "past of the Egyptian national team", a past built on crowning a single player as its star, Mohamed Salah, something the Pharaohs paid dearly for. That is why there will be no "successor to Mo" in our national team. We are in the era of Hossam Hassan.

His is an era in which the collective outweighs individual skills, character outweighs tactical plans, and spirit outweighs technical abilities.

True, this is a harsh period for us given everything Marmoush offered throughout the World Cup, on the individual level and in general, right up to that unjust and unfortunate ending. It is harsh on the player himself too. The hard lesson came at an event like the World Cup, but it need not be the end if the Manchester City man takes it in well.

Thanks, finally, to the fragmentation that eased the burden of criticism aimed at Marmoush. Perhaps he will learn the lesson and make it up to the Egyptian fans at the 2027 Africa Cup.