Football, football everywhere

It's on every TV channel, and every street corner.  No, not the England vs. Brazil friendly that Alice is hopefully attending in Qatar tonight but the North African grudge match being played tonight between Algeria and Egypt.

To be fair, it's a vitally important match.  Neither team has made it to the World Cup for over 20 years, and this match decides who goes.  Algeria are already ahead on aggregate, so Egypt have to win by 3 goals if they are to qualify.  If Algeria hold them to a draw - or even go 1-0 down - they get through.  So the pressure is on the Pharaohs to pull this one out of the bag.  If Egypt win by 2 goals then there will be a playoff in Khartoum on Tuesday.

What does all this mean?  Well, it means that the whole of Cairo has gone absolutely crazy for this match.  The past few weeks have seen the press in both countries stirring the masses into frenzied nationalism.  This morning's Al Ahram newspaper commented that the media coverage has produced a situation where, "...it is not only inconceivable that Egypt loses. It would be a disgrace. The saner say a loss would be a shame; the less rational call it shameful."

Things have been getting nasty.  When the Algerian team arrived, their bus was apparently attacked with rocks and bricks.  Egypt denies this and says the damage to the bus was caused by the Algerians to produce a media response, as were the "faked" pictures of injured players and team personnel.  Algeria, meanwhile, stands by its comment that its team was attacked.

Even before this, the Algerian team knew they could be in for a rough time: when the first leg was played in Algeria, local supporters ran riot in the Egyptian teams' hotel and successfully managed to deprive them of sleep.  Accusations spread of the Algerian chefs poisoning the Egyptian players.  Algeria have brought their own chef and ingredients to Cairo.

Suffice to say I'm fascinated to watch the match - it will be shown on terrestrial TV and so I spent a bit of time this morning fashioning a rudimentary aerial extension cable to our living room.  But even with 8 hours to go the coverage has already begun, and the fans are already parading the streets in their open-top buses.

Suffice to say we'll enjoy the match, but aim to stay off the streets after the match.  Irrespective of the final outcome, I'm sure it's not going to be pretty...