The Egyptian Algerian war

I don’t care about Football.

(Dear American reader : by football I mean the real football. The one you call soccer ? The one you used to practice as a child but then outgrew the moment you heard about actual contact sports ? Yeah, that one !)

I couldn’t care less, to tell you the truth. I have no favorite team. I can ;t get myself to watch games, and I am only interested if the game is the finals or the finals qualifiers game. That’s it. Why bother watching the whole movie ? Just wait for the climax, I always say. And then join in the celebrations if we (whomever we is) win. In reality, I am more interested in the mayhem then in the game, and that has always been my prerogative. So when I tell you that I am super interested in Saturday’s game between Egypt and Algeria, please know that there will be at least riots involved. Maybe a lynching. It’s too early to tell.

The situation is simple and complex : It’s the final game in the worldcup qualifiers, and Egypt needs to defeat Algeria by 3 goals to qualify, and the final game is getting played here in Cairo. Ironically enough, this same exact situation happened to the tee 20 years ago, the last time we qualified in the worldcup. Egypt vs. Algeria, final game to be played in Cairo, also in November. But unlike the one 20 years ago, this one is going a wee bit crazy.

You see, here is the thing about Algerians : They are fuckin nuts. For real. Violence is their thing. Something is not right with those people in general, but especially when it comes to football. Whenever we played a game there in the past year, the fans , at the very least, will throw rocks and rockets at our players. And as if that wasn’t enough, some algerians burned the egyptian flag in the streets and starting making songs about what a bunch of sissies Egyptians are. Given that we are a country that worships football, and not big on being called sissies, even by crazy algerians, the egyptian people decided that they will escalate, and declare war back on Algeria. How is this war taking shape, you might ask ? Well, methodically, actually :

• There is a football tradition of killing owls in order to jinx your opposing team. It has been relayed to me that an Owl holocaust was started last week and is continuing until this very moment.
• Tamer from the popular TV show el beit beitak went on TV a couple of days ago and informed the egyptian audiences of the Hotel the algerian team will be staying in, and urging the egyptian people to “go there and hang out” until the day of the game.

And then the Algerians started to retaliate :

• Algerian airlines has donated 3000 free tickets to hardcore algerian fans in order not to have their team stand by its lonesome against the cheering might of 80,000 egyptians.
• Algerian hackers hacked the egyptian football association webpage today, and put the Israeli flag on it (? ?!!!?).
• Algerian municipality workers have stopped the paperwork for an algerian girl getting married to an egyptian guy, telling her that she can come back for it after saturday’s game.

And then there is what happened today :

• Egyptians dying for a ticket to the Game attacked all ticket selling centers in droves today. The Elite Heliopolis Sporting club managed to secure a couple of thosunad tickets to sell to its members, only to have word of this reaching the egyptian population and having hundreds of egyptians storm into the private club to get their hands on tickets. 40 police cars were called to secure the facility.
  
• The Bus carrying the Algerian team got attacked today, with egyptian fans reportedly attacking it by throwing rocks at them. And then this is where the story gets hazy : The Algerians claim that the rock throwing reached such a degree, that the windows chatters and 4 of their players got injured. The egyptian officials deny that any algerian players got injured, and some are even claiming that the algerians are making the entire thing up, with them breaking the glass of the bus themselves to set the egyptians up. There are videos here and here. You make up your own mind.

The game is on Saturday, which means there are still 48 hours to go during which at least 3000 angry Algerians will be gracing the streets of Cairo, which are already filled with crazed Egyptian fans. Something tells me this won’t end well, which is awesome news for me. I am hoping someone burns the stadium down. It’s been a while since we had a pretty fire, and I think the Algerians might just be the kind of people who will oblige me. In other news, I am totally parking my car in a private garage that day. Who the fuck knows what kind of crazy fucked up shit will happen then ?

Ohh boy, can’t wait ! Saturday just can’t come soon enough.