Farah Kashwa
For many decades, Egypt and Algeria have always had a rivalry when it came to soccer. There were games where there was heated competition. There were games played as grudge matches. There were games played in unfriendly atmospheres. And then, there is Egypt and Algerian rivalry, which was a rivalry taken to a totally different level.
Egypt last qualified for the World Cup in 1990 at Algeria’s expense. Algerians got very upset and started attacking the referee. After that, at an after-match recepetion, an Egyptian doctor travelling with the team got his eye gouged out by an Algerian player using a broken bottle. As a result, relationships between the Egyptian and Algerian national teams have always been tense.
On November 14th, at the Cairo Stadium, Egypt needed a three-goal win to qualify for the World Cup at Algeria’s expense. Even though it was a hard goal to achieve, many Egyptians had faith in their national team players. Two minutes into the game, Egypt scored! Egyptians thought that the three-goal victory was going to happen easily; however, the second goal was scored in the last two mintues of the game. Therefore, all 80,000 Egyptians attending the match at the stadium were sitting on the edge of their seats for the 92 minutes in between. With the smashing Egyptian 2-0 victory over Algeria, there had to be a sudden-death match.
With the luck of the draw, Sudan was announced to be the hosting country of one of the most intense games both countries have ever witnessed. When the Egyptian national team arrived in Sudan, their bus was attacked by Algerians. However, that was only after the Algerian bus carrying the players was attacked during their visit to Egypt.
Before the match kicked-off, both teams were praying to be victorious because for both Egypt and Algeria, qualifying for the World Cup was something both countries have not achieved in a long time. A couple of minutes into the game, both teams had an unfriendly interaction and started to get violent. Also after a while, another unfriendly interaction occurred between both teams which proved that not only were the fans heated, but also the players. With Algeria scoring a crushing goal, the Egyptian national team never recovered thus allowing Algeria to qualify for in the 2010 World Cup. What happened after the game is what is causing a great political and national turmoil between the countries.
After the match, the Algerian fans attacked the Egyptian fans attending the match in Sudan. The Algerian fans reportedly bought knives and other dangerous weapons upon arrival in Sudan with all the intention of using it against the Egyptians, win or lose! Egyptians, unexpecting the attack, were defenseless. An Egyptian fan who was attending the game in Sudan and witnessed the atrocities said, “We have seen death”.
It was hours of terror in Sudan! Egyptians were hiding in Sudanese houses. Some men and women took off anything representing Egyptian flags only so they could walk in the streets without being attacked. Because many Egyptians wanted to express themselves about the recent events, they have rallied outside of the Algerian embassy in Cairo on the 19th of November protesting and voicing their objections to the recent events.
However, with all these events, the Egyptian-Algerian relationship has been scarred forever. One might wonder what happened to playing just for the love of the game.
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