“Divine justice descends on Palermo’s stadium.”Every Egyptian knows this phrase by heart.It was the late Mahmoud Bakr’s commentary during Egypt’s 1-1 draw against the Netherlands in the 1990 World Cup, after Egypt’s then-striker Hossam Hassan — head coach of the current side — was brought down in the penalty area and referee Emilio Soriano Aladren pointed to the spot.Magdi Abdelghani scored Egypt’s only goal of that tournament, before a 0-0 draw against the Republic of Ireland and a 1-0 defeat to England meant they finished bottom of Group F.Egypt’s defence keep a close eye on Dutch forward Marco van Basten at Italia ’90 (Peter Robinson/Getty Images)In hindsight, the failure to win a single game after a 56-year wait between World Cups was just a taster of the hoodoo that haunted Egypt over the following 36 years.Hassan’s side, who beat Australia on penalties on Friday to reach the round of 16 of this World Cup, will forever be remembered in Egyptian football folklore as the team that finally broke the curse — winning Egypt’s first World Cup match (their 3-1 victory against New Zealand) and advancing to the second round of the knockout stages.It took so many years of hurt, incompetence and misfortune to get this far that, in October 2013, a couple of Egyptian journalists made a short documentary named “The years of missed chances”.Little did they know that two days after its release, Egypt would lose 6-1 to Ghana in the first leg of the final round of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. The caveat here is that the 2011-12 and 2012-13 Egyptian domestic seasons were cancelled due to the Port Said Stadium riot in February 2012 and the June 30 revolution in 2013.Egypt’s mishaps in the World Cup qualifiers are plenty. Yet, nothing comes close to “the stone” and Magdy Tolba’s missed chance in April 1993.In the first round of the qualifying for the 1994 World Cup, Egypt defeated Zimbabwe 2-1 in Cairo. However, after a stone struck the opposition head coach, FIFA declared the game was to be replayed on the neutral territory of Stade de Gerland in Lyon, France.In that replayed match, Tolba missed an open goal from five yards out, denying Egypt victory, which meant finishing second behind Zimbabwe and failing to qualify for the tournament in the U.S.Egypt also missed the 1998 World Cup after finishing second in a group containing Tunisia, Liberia and Namibia, where only the first-place team qualified to the final tournament.The thing about the 1998 qualifiers was the peculiar decision to appoint Farouk Gaafar as head coach and Mahmoud El Khatib as the general manager of the national team, practically giving them the same job.