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When Egypt reached the knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup 2026, advancing to the round of 32, the streets filled with something larger than football. Egyptians were not celebrating a goal alone, nor simply a result or even a long-awaited first World Cup victory, ending a drought that dated back to the country’s first appearance in 1934. They were celebrating a rare moment in which, for a few hours at least, they all found themselves on the same side of joy.
From a distance, the scene may have looked excessive: car horns blaring, flags hanging from windows, crowds gathering in streets and squares, chants stretching late into the night, and faces smiling as though they had pulled laughter out from under the weight of everyday life. But anyone who knows Egyptians and understands their relationship with football knows that this is not only about a game. Football here is not merely a green pitch. It is a vast emotional space into which people carry their pressures, disappointments and small private hopes — and from which they sometimes emerge with a brief but precious reason to rejoice.
Football in Egypt is not just a popular sport. It is a common language. People may disagree over politics, economics and almost every detail of daily life, but they can still gather around a match. A worker and an executive, a student and a teacher, a villager and a city dweller, the wealthy and the struggling can sit before the same screen, wait for the same whistle and shout at the same instant. That ability to bring together the unalike is one of football’s quiet miracles in societies that, every now and then, need to be reminded they can still unite around something simple and pure.
That is why the Egyptian celebration of a football victory cannot be read as a purely sporting reaction. There is a clear psychological dimension to what happens. Psychologists speak of “emotional catharsis” — those moments when people find a safe outlet for feelings that have accumulated within them. In Egypt, a football match can become that outlet. People do not rejoice only because the national team has won. They rejoice because they, too, needed to win. They needed the feeling that something could succeed, that a result could finally go their way, that a long wait might end with a smile.
A first win and a first real step forward after decades in the World Cup is not just a number in the record books. It is a deferred memory. Egypt is a country that lives football with exceptional passion, yet its presence at the World Cup has long fallen short of the scale of that passion. Between the immense love of the game and the limited returns on the world stage, there has always been a psychological gap in the public imagination. So, when victory finally comes, it is not received as an ordinary win. It feels like a symbolic correction of something that had remained unfinished. It is as if the crowd is saying: at last, we have a place in this story.
This does not mean that people imagine a football match will solve their problems. Egyptians are far too realistic for that. But nations do not live by calculations alone. Human beings need symbols, moments and images that condense meanings larger than themselves. When the players raise the flag, when the anthem is heard, when the viewer feels that his country is present before the world, the matter becomes bigger than a pass, a goal or a goalkeeper. It becomes a moment of collective self-recognition.
From there comes that swift and deep surge of national pride. Football gives people an immediate sense of belonging because it presents the nation in a form that is easy to grasp: a shirt, a flag, a team, a crowd, a chant. It does not require a long speech to explain what belonging means. It is enough to see people standing tense, then suddenly erupting in joy after a goal, to understand that belonging is not always an abstract idea. Sometimes it is an instinctive cry in a crowded street.
The celebration itself also carries a social meaning. In his cultural temperament, the Egyptian does not like to rejoice alone. Joy needs a witness, a neighbor, a family, a street. That is why celebration leaves the home and moves into a public space. The street becomes an extension of the living room and the city turns into one vast screen, before which people share the same feeling. In those moments, social differences do not disappear entirely but they do fade. People do not ask one another about class, background, opinions or burdens. It is enough that they are smiling for the same reason.
This is one of sport’s great social functions: it creates rare moments of solidarity. Not political solidarity or organizational solidarity but emotional solidarity — and that can sometimes be stronger than any slogan. When people celebrate together, they rediscover one another. They see the other not as a rival in the daily crowd but as a partner in joy. Perhaps that is why football celebrations in Egypt appear so loud and intense: they are not only a celebration of a result but a celebration of the ability to share.
There is also a compensatory dimension that should not be ignored. Societies living under economic, social or psychological pressure need moments of symbolic victory. Such moments do not erase reality but they offer a pause from it. Joy here is not escapism in the negative sense. It is a short recovery of energy. Human beings cannot remain in permanent confrontation with burdens. They need a moment in which they can tell themselves that life has not become entirely heavy, that laughter is still possible and that a chant can still break the silence.
In his cultural temperament, the Egyptian does not like to rejoice alone. Joy needs a witness, a neighbor, a family, a street.
Dr. Abdellatif El-Menawy
That is why those who mock people’s joy because they see it as larger than the match itself misunderstand the scene. Nations do not always measure joy by the objective size of an event but rather by the depth of their need for it. In sporting terms, it may be only a win in a tournament. In psychological and social terms, it can be a space for compensation, hope and a rare opportunity to repair something in the public mood.
A football match may not change the economy, resolve political crises or wipe away the worries of everyday life. But it can, for a few hours, change the mood of a nation. It can open a window in a crowded wall, give people the feeling that they are together, make the street a little less harsh, faces a little lighter and the public spirit a little less broken.
And that is no small thing.
Nations do not live by bread, numbers or policies alone. They also live by symbols, songs, flags and moments in which they feel they are still capable of joy. When they win, Egyptians are not only celebrating their team. They are celebrating themselves: their capacity to love, to unite and to turn a goal scored in a distant stadium into a small festival on the streets at home.
- Dr. Abdellatif El-Menawy has covered conflicts worldwide. He is the author of “The Copts: An Investigation into the Rift between Muslims and Copts in Egypt.” X: @ALMenawy