Across the country, Egyptians from all walks of life celebrated as the national football team won the Africa Cup of Nations. Dina Ezzat joined the festivities The roads to and from Cairo Airport were blocked, but drivers and pedestrians were far from impatient. Rather the opposite; everybody seemed happy. Ever so patiently, hundreds of Egyptians awaited peacefully and joyfully for the arrival of the bus of the national soccer team on Monday morning. The team had just arrived after winning the Africa Cup of Nations for the third time in a row, and for the seventh time since the launch of the tournament. Men and women of different age brackets and of varied socio-economic backgrounds took to the streets on Sunday night after Egypt won the final 1-0 over the exuberant youngsters of Ghana. Until the early hours of Monday dawn they chanted and waved the flag of Egypt. A few hours later in the morning many of them went back to the streets to continue the celebrations. "I usually get very impatient if I have to wait while the president's motorcade is passing by. Today, I am not at all upset. It is really worth the wait for the president to pass by and welcome our heroes," said Hussein, a banker, as he spoke through the window of his car stuck on the Orouba Road on the way to Cairo International Airport, around eight in the morning, on Monday. He then retrieved a big flag from the seat next to him, started waving it and chanting "Masr, Masr". In an untypical move President Hosni Mubarak received members of the national team twice on Monday. Along with his senior aides and figures of the opposition, Mubarak awaited the arrival of the plane returning with the national soccer team from Angola, host of the African Cup. Mubarak took the time to shake hands with every member of the team and its trainers before they got on a bus to drive through Cairo's streets and be welcomed by enchanted Egyptians. "Zidan is so cool. We're waiting to see him, and of course the rest of the national team," said Rania, a 17-year-old high school student. Rania, like her other girlfriends, know little about the rules of football. She says that she can only recognise a goal when scored and does not know much more about the game. "But I know exactly what it means for Egypt to win and I am proud we made it," she said as she awaited the arrival of the bus on Orouba Road. Through the heart of Cairo, from Heliopolis, on the eastern side of the capital, to Zamalek, on the western side, the bus of the "national heroes" made it among rejoicing Egyptians from the airport to the headquarters of the Football Federation. Then again, later in the evening members of the national team drove through the town to Heliopolis, the venue of the presidential palace to be decorated by the president. "You made every single Egyptian man and woman happy with a remarkable and impressive performance in Angola," Mubarak told the members of the national team. For Mubarak, the performance of the national team in Angola was more than a sports achievement. It was, he said, a sign of "national commitment" that all Egyptians were united in celebrating. And for the stars of the national team, who spoke to the press briefly after Mubarak received them at the airport, the top achievement was not just breaking a new record by securing the African Cup for the third time in a row, but rather in making "all the Egyptian nation happy", even if only for a few hours. "It is perfectly true. This is a rare moment of happiness for everyone. It does not matter if you are rich or poor and it does not matter if you are from Cairo or Upper Egypt. You are just happy that your national team made it," said Ibrahim, a middle-aged man who waited outside the airport to watch the return of the national team. Ibrahim is not sure of the reason that makes football victories a rare moment of achievement and rejoice for Egyptians. Nor is he sure why Egyptian soccer is above all else. "I really don't know. I just find it to be so. We have no other major achievement to celebrate. Only football," he shrugged. "Well, at least we have something," he added almost pathetically. For some -- or maybe many -- Egyptian soccer fans who celebrated the new record registered by the national football team, the Sunday victory over the Ghanaian team was not the crescendo of happiness. It was the victory of the national team 4-0 over its Algerian counterpart that made them perfectly happy, in the semi-final played three days earlier. Last November, amid squabbles among fans and sports reporters on both sides, Algeria beat Egypt 1-0 in a play-off that prevented Egypt from going to the World Cup in South Africa later this year. Many Egyptian soccer fans were extremely disappointed. Their grief was ignited by media coverage that squarely portrayed Algeria as an Egyptian enemy -- irrespective of decades of amicable relations and joint resistance against colonialism in the 1950s and 1960s. "This is a message to the Algerians. They are going to the World Cup but we got the African Cup," said Galal, a Cairo taxi driver. In Galal's mind, if the Egyptian national team managed to win the African Cup then it makes no sense that it lost to Algeria in the inter-continent qualifying game for the World Cup. "Obviously, this is still a problem. However, we are grateful that the Algeria-Egypt game last Thursday went peacefully, for the best part," commented an Egyptian diplomat who asked his name be withheld. Not overlooking the exchange of harsh criticism in soccer magazines and some talk-shows and newspapers on both the Egyptian and Algerian side, in the wake of Thursday's game, diplomats on both sides consider that their call for calm in the run-up to the Algeria-Egypt game was positively received. It might be a very long time before fences can truly be mended between Egypt and Algeria. Signs of continued economic and political cooperation between Cairo and Algiers have failed to fix the huge damage sustained by bilateral ties during a sequence of three qualifying games for the World Cup that the national teams of Egypt and Algeria played last year. Libyan mediation failed so far to get the presidents of Egypt and Algeria in a reunion that would send a positive message to both peoples. Still, Libya, which will head the Arab summit next month, is still pursuing subtle mediation efforts. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, diplomats say, is indeed planning to try to get President Mubarak and his counterpart Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika together at the summit. The football teams of both countries are not scheduled to meet any time soon. "We are over this episode and we are not looking back but we are moving ahead," said Hassan Shehata, the national team coach. Shehata spoke to reporters after being decorated by the president on Monday evening. It's a different story whether Egyptian public opinion will get over the Algeria-Egypt episode. A clear indicator of an ease of tension would be the attitude that Egyptian soccer fans take towards the Algerian national team when the World Cup starts. Algeria is the only Arab nation whose national football team qualified for the tournament.
