Egypt’s Ahmed Adel ‘Dola’ ruled out of World Cup qualifiers with knee injury

Ahmed Adel “Dola” will miss Egypt’s fourth window of the African qualifiers for the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup after scans confirmed he has suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and damage to his knee cartilage.

The Al Ittihad Alexandria and Egypt player was injured during a friendly match against Portugal in Turkey, where the national team have been holding a training camp ahead of the next stage of qualification.

Egypt national team medical official Islam Gomaa confirmed that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans showed the full extent of the injury.

Gomaa said Dola had sustained both an ACL tear and a cartilage injury, ruling him out of Egypt’s three matches in the upcoming qualifying window.

The player’s condition will be assessed by a specialist in knee surgery once the Egypt squad returns home, Gomaa added.

Egypt have been preparing in Turkey, where they played international friendlies against Portugal and Tunisia. The team will now travel to Dakar, Senegal, for the fourth window of the African qualifiers, which will take place from 27 to 30 August.

The national side are in a group alongside Angola, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal. The qualification phase is being played on a home-and-away basis.

At the end of the group stage, the group winners and runners-up will qualify for the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup, along with the best-performing team to finish third.

Egypt begin the fourth window with nine points collected during the previous stage and will start the latest round in fifth place in the group.

Their campaign in Dakar will consist of three important fixtures. Egypt are scheduled to face Senegal first, followed by Cote d’Ivoire, before completing the window against the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Those three opponents are all teams Egypt did not meet during the previous stage of the qualifiers.

Dola’s injury is therefore a significant setback for Egypt before a demanding sequence of matches, with the team required to improve its position in the group while competing for one of the available places at the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The diagnosis was confirmed after he underwent the MRI scan following the Portugal friendly, and he will now begin the process of determining the appropriate treatment for the knee injury.