may lack in technical quality and international superstars, it makes up for with unbridled obsession.
For fifty weeks a year, Cairo’s tour guides, cab drivers, strangers in the street, hawkers selling plastic pyramids do little but regurgitate tales about pharaohs and mummies, but for two weeks surrounding the match, any excuse to talk about football is seized. Here, as in many places around the world, English football is an international language, ‘ah…Beckman, Manchesta Uniteed’. But get Egyptians onto the subject of Ahly v Zamalek and you see them as they were decades ago as wide-eyed children.
When no less an expert than Scotland’s World Cup referee and Ahly v Zamalek veteran Hugh Dallas refers to the game as ‘bigger than the Old Firm,’ you know that it has to be a wee bit special. ‘You just don’t realise quite how big it is until you see it for yourself,’ he enthuses. ‘I’ve done 14 or 15 Old Firm matches and even they don’t come close to this. I genuinely believe that this is as big as it gets…’
Football arrived in Egypt during British rule a century ago. Although none of the English clubs survive from that era, Zamalek was formed to represent the expatriates of the time. Originally founded in 1911 as Kaser-el-nil (Place on the Nile), in 1923 the club was renamed Al Mukhatalat, meaning ‘Mixed’, signifying Egyptians and Europeans playing together, representing the ideal of Egypt as a conduit between Europe and Arabia. Meanwhile, Al Ahly was founded in 1909, their name meaning ‘national’, the club coming to represent students and the rising nationalist movement that craved an independent Egyptian republic.
In World War II, tensions were rising to unprecedented levels. Although both clubs had tried to retain an apolitical veneer, when King Farouk, who all too frequently used football as his PR tool, leant his considerable patronage to Mukhatalat there could be no denying the club’s political allegiances. When Farouk was deposed in 1952, the league was suspended and the club was forced to change its name once again – reflecting its affluent roots, to Zamalek, after Cairo’s wealthy island district in the Nile. The political seesaw having tipped its way, Ahly appointed the newly founded Republic of Egypt’s new ruler General Gamal Abdal Nasser as club president in 1954.
Years of bitter struggle followed. As Zamalek strived to keep up with Ahly’s dominance, the rivalry became less a sporting contest and more about politics. And just to sharpen things up, Ahly established a permanent home for themselves – in the heart of the Zamalek district. The enemies were now sharing an island less than three miles square.
Events reached crisis point in 1966 when a game between the two was halted as the army stormed the stadium. In the ensuing riot over 300 people were injured and an unspecified number killed. Just a few months later the Arab–Israeli Six-Day War broke out and the league was suspended.
Normal service wouldn’t be resumed until well after 1973’s Yom Kippur War, Ahly immediately re-establishing their superiority, winning seven of the next eight titles. In fact, when Ismaily sneaked the title last year it was only the fourth time since the Yom Kippur War that one of the Cairo giants hadn’t been crowned champions. During this time Ahly had not only won eighteen out of twenty-seven league titles, but had also secured three African Champions Leagues and four African Cup Winners’ Cups. As the century closed, Ahly received almost unanimous support across the continent when they were voted African Team of the Century. No guesses as to which was the only club to challenge the vote.
But who supports which club and why? Perhaps surprisingly, religion has no place in this rivalry. Even veteran fans claim not to be able to see an obvious divide between Muslims and Christians. Walid Darwish, a regular Egyptian football observer and key figure in Ibrahim Said’s transfer to Everton, is stuck to find a real pattern in club loyalties over the last twenty-five years. ‘The ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s were about politics, not sport. Back then families had a clear choice – Nationalist or Royalist, and so Ahly or Zamalek, but it was never religious. Today’s interest is purely sporting. Traditional family loyalties certainly go back to the politics, and the tradition is for children to grow up supporting the team of their parents, regardless of where they live.
‘The older generation has moved on from the hatred that divided our country. Egypt is a liberal society by Middle Eastern standards and even those that were in the middle of the political fighting are enjoying the relative stability, so they don’t want to live in the past. The only people that still contribute to any political divisions are the press, because for the last forty years almost each and every one of the papers has had a visible loyalty to one of the camps. These days young Egyptians are deprived of any proper political orientation, so the historic meaning to the Ahly–Zamalek rivalry is likely to be forgotten. They cheer their team and hate the others, because that is what they do. It is a tradition embedded in the Egyptian consciousness that makes us classify everyone in the simplest terms: man–woman, Muslim–Christian, northern–southern, Ahlawy–Zamalkawy. My guess is that we will soon have this club classification on our national ID.’
While today’s fans enjoy a relative truce in hostilities, two players have proved an exception to the rule: Hossam and Ibrahim Hassan. The twins have dominated Egyptian football for nearly fifteen years. Hossam is the most celebrated player in Egypt’s history, a 157-cap and 76-goal international, inspirational leader, immense physical presence and supreme poacher, while the less prolific Ibrahim, a full-back, has on numerous occasions provoked the ire of the Egyptian FA. Two years ago they became the first players for a generation to cross the great divide when they quit Ahly for Zamalek. The transfer started when Ahly offered Hossam just a one-year contract extension, while pressing Ibrahim to retire altogether. With both out of contract, there wasn’t even a fee involved when Zamalek came knocking. The double move provoked a reaction in the red half of Cairo compared to which Sol Campbell and Luis Figo both got off lightly. Death threats are taken seriously in this part of the world, and the twins still have to be accompanied by armed guards to this day.
In El-Fishawi (the cafe that claims not to have closed once since opening 300 years ago) waiter Kareem still takes it personally. ‘We loved them. We would have done anything for them. They moved to Europe – we were happy for them; they returned – we were happy for them. If they had wanted to retire we would have given them a party and lined the streets. But to move to Zamalek? Unforgivable. Like selling the Sphinx. Even for money you do not betray your mother like that,’ he says.
‘People started talking about the old rivalries of politics and nationalism for the first time in years,’ comments EgyptianSoccer.com’s founding editor, Mohammad Safi. ‘In footballing terms it was such a waste of time. Ibrahim is past his best and Hossam’s touch has gone. Besides they have always been too much trouble.
‘A few years ago in Morocco, Ibrahim tried to incite the home fans by giving them the finger. It may not seem much to a European, but with North African tensions the way they are, that is just plain crazy. He also stormed Ahly’s directors box a while back. When they crossed the divide things got even worse. During last year’s 6–1 victory for Al Ahly, it was madness out there. The Ahly fans had really turned on them. I mean really vicious, but the twins didn’t care. After the game Hossam waved his shoes at them, which is a huge insult over here.’
One person better placed than most to judge the defection is former Ahly hero now of Everton, Ibrahim Said. ‘I can’t say I was happy, but to me it was a professional decision and I understood. Good players will always be in demand and some will end up making such moves for personal reasons. You can’t change it, but you can beat them to show them the error of their ways!’
Things have spilled over on the pitch for years. In 1996 local referee Kadry Azeem caused chaos by not disallowing a legitimate Ahly goal – after a quick conference Zamalek walked off in a huff, just the latest in a long line of player walkouts, the most serious being in the early ’70s when an Ahly exit resulted in the most destructive football-related violence since 1958. Today, with no Egyptian referee daft enough to want to stand in the middle, a who’s who of
