Egypt vs. Algeria: of things seen and heard

Of course we are all making plans for where to watch Wednesday’s decisive Egypt-Algeria showdown for the World Cup berth.

The honking has stopped in front of my place, mercifully enough. 8 or so riot police are watching every vehicle that comes up the street, and the honking is now so suspiciously absent that I would imagine that warnings were given against repeating the behavior of earlier this week.

Yesterday morning, we noticed about five truckloads of riot police at a luxury hotel not far from AUC’s new campus, and eventually drew the conclusion that the Algerian team must be staying there.

Just tonight, an American guy I know who works in the library, a rabid soccer fan well-informed about everything related to the sport, told me of the ugliest of past on-field incident between the two countries. Apparently an Algerian player threw a bottle at an Egyptian coach some 20 years ago. The coach was struck in the head, and lost an eye. The Algerian player was the subject of an outstanding Egyptian arrest warrant that expired only last year, after solutions at the diplomatic level.

It feels as if Egypt has the momentum, but of course you never know.