New Town signing Samy Morsy has been named on a list of foreign-based players for Egypt’s two World Cup qualifiers against Libya next month.
National team coach Carlos Queiroz is set to release the full squad on September 26th but has already selected the overseas players he plans to include.
The Egyptians host Libya in Cairo on Friday 8th October with the second match three days later in Benghazi.
Egypt is set to join Libya on the Government’s amber list on Wednesday. Premier League and EFL clubs collectively agreed not to release players for fixtures in red list countries during the international break earlier this month but they gave the go-ahead for them to travel for games in amber nations.
The 29-year-old will miss Town’s games at Gillingham in the Papa John’s Trophy on Tuesday 5th October and the home match with Shrewsbury on the following Saturday, assuming neither the Blues nor the Shrews have three international calls and opt to have the fixture postponed.
Morsy has previously won seven Egypt caps with his last appearance as a sub against Eswatini in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in 2018.
In addition to the two World Cup qualifiers, the Pharoahs will play a friendly against Liberia on 30th September which is outside the international week and Morsy wouldn’t be involved in that fixture.
Egypt are currently in second place in their World Cup qualification group with four points, two points behind the Libyans with Gabon on one point and Angola on zero.
Morsy could also be included in the Egypt squad for their November internationals, while he may be absent for a number of weeks early next year when the Africa Cup of Nations takes place between January 9th and February 6th in Cameroon.
The midfielder is yet to make a league appearance for the Blues as he has been serving a suspension which was a hangover from his final match with Middlesbrough, although he made his debut in last week’s Papa John’s Trophy tie with West Ham’s U21s.
Egypt foreign-based players: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool), Mohamed Elneny (Arsenal), Ahmed Hassan Kouka (Konyaspor), Mostafa Mohamed (Galatasaray), Sam Morsy (Ipswich Town), Omar Marmoush (VfB Stuttgart), Ahmed Yasser Rayan (Altay SK), and Karim Hafez (Yeni Malatyaspor).