As I am writing this article, I have to acknowledge I do not know anything about football! In my youth under president Gamal Abdel Nasser, this game a huge pot in which most people participated. We had two choices: to join the fans club, or to boycott. in both cases, we were following a scenario written by the regime. The great Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim once said: The era of pen has come to an end and the age of the foot has started!
Another great writer called Abdul Rahman al-Sharqawi once left a meeting with us to listen to a game in the radio. I was astonished by what happened as I used to consider him a role model and a great writer.
For me, Sharqawi was a leftist author of one of the finest novels. For half a century, the image of the writer, who neglected everyone and sat on the edge of a chair to listen to a football match, has been etched in my memory, engraved with a question: What is the secret of football?
This question appeared in my head again with the match between Egypt and Uganda as millions of people watched the match in cafes, houses and streets. There must be a secret in this game.
I discovered that the game is very old as the historian Herodotus wrote in 448 BC: When I visited Egypt, I found a game called the game of the ball, which the Egyptians make of goatskin, and which they stuff with cotton or straw. The players kick it between two teams, an reach the end point for a goal.
Pharaonic inscriptions of women playing with round balls were found. Moreover, Paul Auster, the American famous writer said once that men waste an entire day to watch a football match. He explained that as football game tells a story and makes the people eager to learn the final result. It is an exciting story for many people. We need heroes and champions and we find them in football games.
That s why sixty thousand Egyptians are chanting the Egyptian anthem and the millions are watching the match in houses, in cafes and in the streets. They need a hero!
