There is no doubt that social media has become a true indicator and a reflection of the amount of attention people give to certain events around the world. In Egypt, El Clasico was no different. On Saturday, Barcelona hosted Real Madrid in a new chapter in their long-time rivalry, as they faced off in La Liga's week 31. The match, which started at 8.30pm local Cairo time, captured the attention of billions around the world as it went trending on Twitter and quickly topped all other trending subjects. During the match, two hashtags related to the big game were trending worldwide. The top was ElClasico, while Real Madrid's captain and defender Sergio Ramos found his way to Twitter land, coming third in the most tweeted hashtags then. In Egypt the attention the match received was more than that of the entire world combined. Egyptians tweeted about the match played in the Camp Nou Stadium using five hashtags that went trending out of the 10 most tweeted by hashtags. Just like the whole world, “ElClasico” was the number one trending hashtag on Twitter all during the game. Second came another hashtag, for the supporters of Real Madrid. The third trending hashtag in Egypt during the Spanish league clash was also related to El Clasico: “YallaClasico”. The fifth was also linked to the same match, this one for the “madridistas” that tweeted using the hashtag of the famous chant “Hala Madrid”. The last hashtag Egyptians used and went trending on Twitter wondered about the winner of El Clasico. The match, which ended with a late winner for Real, ending the game in their favour 2-1, was followed by huge responses with sarcastic comics on social media. They were shared by thousands of Egyptians and were inspired mainly by Egyptian comedy movies. The match was the first real test for Real Madrid's new coach Zinedine Zidane and his first El-Classico, a test that he most deservedly succeeded in. His success was met with hundreds of comments on social media. One twitter user, Ahmed Ashraf, tweeted: “90 minutes proved that Zidane is a very big coach”. Amr Ismail tweeted “Zidane, the greatest player in football history played a great game as a coach”. Other users preferred to praise Zidane on his tactics, as Mohamed Abdullah tweeted “regardless of the score, Zidane has given in a great tactical match”. More praise came in for Zidane, also known as Zizou, when Mohamed Al-Fayoumi tweeted “Zidane is still the hero even when he is playing the role of the father and coach”. Mohamed Naser tweeted “we are happy for Zidane before anything else”. For Barcelona fans, social media did not seem apparently so attractive to use after the match. You could hardly find a tweet or a post from a Barcelona fan. The few tweets that came in from the supporters of the red and blue were a bit harsh on their team, criticising the way Barca played, even though they still have a commanding lead in the league race. Meanwhile, it looked like a white party for Real Madrid supporters on social media worldwide, including Egypt.
