Soccer (Football)

In Egypt, as is true in most of the rest of the world, there is only one sport that captures the attention of the people: football (I guess I have to start calling it that, now). When I came to Cairo, I thought that I might try to get into a strange sport like cricket or jai alai or handball. But, it turns out that people expend so much energy rooting for their favorite football club, that there isn't really enough time for any other interest. So, I'm just going to have to get myself into football. 

First, I need to pick a team to root for. It turns out that, basically, it is acceptable to be a fan of only two clubs in Cairo. There are other clubs, but the most heated and widely recognized (not to mention historical) rivalry is between the "Al Ahly" club and the "Zamalek" club. In fact, it turns out that neither club has ever been relegated in their respective histories, which means that they have always been in the top tier of football clubs in all of Africa. 

As a sidenote, why couldn't a relegation system work in American sports, especially baseball? Imagine Major League Baseball split into two tiers. The bottom tier would be the fifteen crappy teams playing their butts off for a chance to be in the big boys league. The top tier would not only be higher quality baseball every night, but every team would be playing for something, because you are either going to the playoffs, or you are getting relegated to the "B" league. So, at the end of the season, instead of having an endless summer of irrelevant Rangers-Royals games, you have only a handful of irrelevant games, since the only teams with nothing to play for are the crappyest of the crappy, the teams at the bottom of the "B" league with no chance of moving up. But even those teams will become a little more competitive. For example, the Pirates and Nats would still be at the bottom of the "B" league, but instead of losing dozens of games to the Mets and the Phils, they substitute those games for more winnable games against, say, the Mariners and  Orioles. Worse competition, but at least you aren't losing 120 games a year. A whole post on this is coming, I think. But for now, I digress.

Initially, I thought that choosing a football alliance was going to be simple. Since I live in a neighborhood in Cairo called Zamalek, I would simply root for the most local team. It's not that simple. It turns out that, not only is Zamalek (the football club) not in Zamalek (the neighborhood), but instead in Giza, a suburb of Cairo, but Al Ahly practices on a field on El Gezira, the island in the middle of the Nile where Zamalek (the neighborhood) is. No help there. 

The history of the clubs is pretty interesting. Al Ahly, which basically means National in Arabic, was founded in 1907 as an Egyptian Nationalistic club, in a time when Egypt was still existing under British colonial occupation. Naturally, in that time, huge social and political implications arose from the clubs successes and failures, and it has been intertwined with the political history of Egypt ever since. President Nasser was named its honorary president for a time in 1956, and in 1967 during Israeli occupation, all sporting members were required to endure military training, or else be banned. 

Zamalek was formed in 1911 by a Belgian to be a rival to Al Ahly. These clubs were just starting to hate each when, as the story goes, there was a young man named Hegazy. Hegazy formed a sort of rogue soccer team of his own around this time, and called it "Hegazy's Eleven." They played various teams made up of British soldiers, and were extremely successful, prompting the two clubs to get in a sort of bidding war for their football services. Hegazy ended up playing for Al Ahly, and the other ten for Zamalek. The rivalry was on. 

Historically (and today), Al Ahly is the better team, with Zamalek constantly playing the scrappy underdog role. Currently, they are ranked 4th and 8th in Africa (the Garoua club in Cameroon has a commanding hold on 1st place). The decision on whom to root for is tough, because while you want to be a fan of the better team, the underdog can be irresistible too, and it is close enough that Zamalek could pull off the upset at any time. You have to like the old team with Nationalist ties, but at the same, how can you not root for the squad full of mercenaries administered by foreign expats? These days, both teams are made up of virtually all Egyptians, but their reputations seem to last. 

In the end, I have to say that I am going to root for Zamalek, for two reasons. One, Zamalek's uniform is waaaay cooler. There is no debate there; their "visiting kit" is all black!!! Two, my friend Theo is a fan of Al Ahly. So there you go. Go Zamalek!!