Egypt: Football Before and After the Revolution · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

In the past years, football (soccer) used to be the main source for joy for the Egyptian people. The Egyptian football team won the past three African Cups of Nations that were held in Egypt, Ghana and Angola successively. During the championships it was normal to see the people here mesmerized in front of television sets, and ready with their flags and car honks to go down and celebrate in the streets after every victory.
However, yesterday Egypt was playing against South Africa, and it lost in the last minute of the match. There is a big probability now for Egypt not to be qualified to the next championship for the first time in history. But you know, no one in Egypt was sad at all. Some were even happy. Did Egypt's recent revolution have anything to do with this?
Mazen and Yasser believe that Egyptians used football to escape from their daily problems.
Taxi Driver Celebrating with Egyptian Flag, photo copyright Demotix
Also during the protests in Egypt many football players went out in demonstrations to support Hosni Mubarak. About a year and half ago, Mubarak, his media and the football players were about to start a war between Egypt and Algeria and spread loads of lies and hatred towards the Algerian people because of a football match. Almost all of the Egyptians fell prey to those lies then and perhaps that's why they football team is considered by some as a symbol of the corruption of Mubarak's era.
Not only people weren't sad, but they were also happy because the believe people can focus now more on the political reform taking place in Egypt.
And finally, Muhammad Habib couldn't prevent himself from poking some fun: