Anyone who has played a football management game will have reached the stage where new players enter the system with similar names to some of your favourites.
Normally you’ll laugh off the idea as something preposterous. But then it will start to infiltrate its way into the real world of football and you’ll have a hard time differentiating between reality and the virtual world.
You know, like when Leeds United signed Bissau-Guinean twins Ronaldo and Romario Vieira.
I know calling every Championship player a regen is very 2013 Twitter but Leeds literally have a guy called Ronaldo Vieira
— Tom Victor (@tomvictor) November 20, 2016
Egypt have taken the regen game to another level, however, flooding their Under-20 squad with several namesakes of European and South American stars.
Not content with boasting a midfielder known as Mahmoud Trézéguet in their senior squad, youth coach Metmed Gamal has bags of flair on his Africa U-20 Cup of Nations roster.
As reported by King Fut, the Egyptian squad includes Nedved, Beckham and Neymar. Not the Champions League finalists of the same name, but rather a trio of Egyptians known by the names of more illustrious pros.
So that’s Karim Nedved, Ahmed Ramadan Beckham and Khalil ‘Neymar’ Elnouby. We bet they’ll have a fight on their hands over set piece duty.
The Africa U-20 Cup of Nations begins in Zambia on February 26. Egypt, who won the competition in 2013, failed to qualify for the most recent tournament in 2015.
Catch up with this week’s episode of 888sport Football Friday Live
