Egypt’s worst-ever soccer disaster: at least 73 people died at a match in Port Said on Wednesday. “This tragedy is not simply a story of a match gone horribly awry,” writes James Dorsey at The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerblog. “It will have important and wide-ranging political ramifications.” (Full post here.) The causes for the tragedy are unclear.
According to the New York Times, “Politicians, fans and Egyptian soccer officials all faulted the police as failing to conduct the standard gate searches to prevent fans from bringing knives, clubs or other weapons into the match.” Did the ultras — hard-core supporters — of home side El Masry and Cairo heavyweights Al Ahly walk into a trap?
“People here are dying, and no one is doing a thing. It’s like a war,” said Al Ahly star midfielder Mohamed Aboutrika; “Is life this cheap?” He then promptly announced his retirement from the professional game.
“The ultras whether they walked into a trap or initiated the Port Said violence have no doubt again dug themselves into a hole,” Dorsey observes (full post here). “This time round it will be a lot tougher to dig themselves out. They have played into the hands of the military and the police in dealing a lethal blow [to] contentious street politics as opposed to electoral politics and the horse trading associated with it.”
We at Footballiscominghome extend our condolences to the families of the victims.
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Additional coverage of the Port Said disaster and its aftermath here.
This just in from Alex Galarza: NPR’s Andy Carvin is curating tweets live from Cairo @acarvin. Osama Diab at The Guardian also has a worthwhile story.
Read David Goldblatt’s “Egypt’s Political Football” here.
The 2010 African Cup of Nations provided a political appetizer to Africa’s first World Cup. A stubborn stain remains, but it should not distract from Egypt’s remarkable three consecutive African Nations Cups.
Props to the Pharoahs! Hassan Shehata had them playing some seriously penetrating football. They were passing and moving like a Bob Paisley machine — and that’s the highest of all high compliments one can make about a football manager. Aboutrika, Mido and Zaki, all seemed like yesterday’s men, as precocious and timely talents like Shikabla and Geddo combined with creative mainstays like Hassan, Motaeb and Zidan to persuade the ball into their opponents net. Gomaa and El Hadary ensured there would be few arguments at the other end. The Pharoahs will be missed in South Africa, especially when some European adventurers hack their way South in search of the treasure that is avoiding defeat.
And how will Africa’s World Cup qualifiers respond? The Pharoahs provided a clinic, but there were also important lessons to be learned from the performances of Malawi and Zambia. In a word: BELIEVE.
South African defender Matthew Booth decided to film his teammates during the recent Confederations Cup competition. (Remember him? He’s the only white guy in the team who fans greet with a loud “Boooottthhh” whenever he touches the ball and who Spanish reporters, looking for black racism decided was booed by the fans.) Booth, who maintains quite an active Youtube channel, regularly films his teammates, and in the video, above, captured them (and their Brazilian coach Joel Santana) singing on camera in the dressing room before their game against Spain in the first round. Check it out. (Here’s another example.) It also made me wonder again why South African fans don’t leave the vuvuzelas outside the stadium and do some actual singing? That would not sound only better, but would present an actual, not corporate-induced part of football culture in that country, to visiting fans.
First, The Mail & Guardian, a weekly newspaper in South Africa reported that some members of the Egyptian football team–who play the United States this afternoon in their final match of the first round of the Confederations Cup–had about $2,400 stolen by thieves from their Johannesburg hotel rooms.
This was bad news for the local organizers who were already facing questions about how it would keep players and fans safe during next year’s World Cup in a country with a high crime and murder rate.
The details were vague and a team representative blamed the players: “We are disappointed, but it’s their own fault. There are safes, but they left the money outside. It’s over now. This can happen anywhere. This will not spoil our experience. We are focusing on the tournament and the South Africans are supporting us as though we are their national team.”
Today a Johannesburg tabloid newspaper, Sunday World, reported that police had a different theory: “… some of the Egyptian players brought hookers to their hotel to celebrate their historic win against world champions Italy on Thursday night.”
BBC pundit Garth Crooks (and Tottenham Hotspurs legend) going on (especially from 1:50 of the video) about the brilliance of Egyptian goalkeeper, Essam El Hadary–chiefly responsible for his side’s gritty 1-0 defeat of Italy in Confederations Cup group play yesterday.
Egypt, by the way, is currently last in group qualifiers for next year’s World Cup. Only the top teams in the five African groups qualify. Egypt currently trail favorites Algeria. Zambia is second and Rwanda third.
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