5 countries who could pull off a surprise in World Cup 2018

#3 Egypt

Salah sealed World Cup qualification for Egypt in the qualifiers

Mohamed Salah led Egypt to the country's first-ever qualification for the World Cup since 1990.

After missing out the competition for 28 years, Egypt could make a huge comeback into the competition with their starman, Salah.

Salah has been on a great form for Liverpool since joining the English side in the summer. He has now scored 41 goals across all competitions as of 23 April 2018 and is earning the praise of many around the world.

Egypt enters the competition as underdogs but they are lucky to face relatively manageable opponents such as Saudi Arabia and hosts Russia in the group stages.

There are still doubts over the quality of the Egypt squad but with Salah representing his nation, it will not be a surprise he fires his country past the group stages to advance further in the competition.

Essam El-Hadary, Egypt's goalkeeper, is set to be the oldest keeper to make it into the World Cup.

At 45 years of age, he has won African Cup of Nations four times but has not played in the World Cup. El-Hadary has not been in a good form in recent games for his club, but with so much experience he has, he could prove to be a valuable player for the national team.

Egypt was close to getting a draw against Portugal in the international friendlies earlier in March.

However, Cristiano Ronaldo destroyed the hopes after a last-minute winner. Despite that result, Hector Cuper, Egypt's coach, remains upbeat ahead of the World Cup.

He believes his team is strong enough to survive in the competition and thus far, it has been a positive managerial campaign for the Argentine who has a winning percentage of close to 60%.

Cuper's favoured formation is playing 4-2-3-1, maintaining stability in his team's play by balancing attack and defence.