Egypt's Through to the CAF Final!

I'm afraid this is becoming for of an Egyptian football blog than one about me, but the biggest news of the week is easily Egypt's progress through the African Nations Cup. Tonight Egypt beat Algeria 4-0, with two of those goals coming very late in the game after Algeria was penalized again and again. Finally, they finished with only eight players left on the field, and faced a humiliating loss to their most bitter foes. Of course Cairo is celebrating like crazy right now. There is a car horn rythm that seems to have become the national expression for supporting the soccer team. It consists of two short blasts followed by a triplet, and that is definitely the predominant sound of the city right now. Taxis have been playing it all day, and before the game all the cars at an intersection would synchronize themselves, "dum, dum, da da da." There are also the expected celebrations in the streets with people waving flags and chanting "Masr, Masr;" which is Arabic for Egypt.

I saw most of the game at the Marriot Hotel here in Zamalek, which is an incredibly nice place. It would have been preferrable to see the game in a cheaper location, but most of them were already standing-room only by the time we got back from campus. The upside of the experience is that we met a German man who happened to be the president of the Kiel Baltic Hurricanes. I'm assuming most of you, like me, don't know much about the Baltic Hurricanes. Well, they are a German American football team, as in they play American football in Germany. They are also quite good, having finished second for the past two years. I've never followed the German Football League, but as of now I'm hoping Kiel can break their string of finishing second.

The bar at the Marriot got too crowded for us to see a TV near the end of the game, so we left and joined an Egyptian crowd of about 50 people sitting in an alley watching a single TV. By this time the match was more or less over, so I was mostly watching the Egyptians reactions. Their exuberance didn't disappoint. Next up: the final against Ghana on Sunday. Coincidentally, my sister spent her semester abroad in Ghana, so the game creates a bit of a family rivalry.