Hey, Let's Cheer For Egypt

When Mohamed Salah was taken down in the Champions League final, 100 million people felt his pain. Now an anguished Egypt awaits its star’s return.

- Mona Eltahawy

The cafe was standing room only on May 26 in Montreal. What was I doing spending my Saturday watching a team I don’t support play a team I despise in the final of a tournament from which my team had been knocked out embarrassingly early? But the Champions League final must be watched surrounded by noise, and I was determined to stay. Little did I know I had signed up for anguish worthy of a Greek tragedy, in an Italian coffee shop.

As I stood in line for a drink, looking for a seat before resigning myself to leaning against a counter for 90 minutes, the reason I was at the café appeared on the massive screen, and cheers went up.

Mohamed Salah.

I did not cheer. There was no way I was going to root for a Liverpool player in public. You see, one day 42 years ago, with the certainty of a 9-year-old, I swore a lifetime of allegiance to Manchester United. I was an Egyptian girl living in London whose dad and brother both supported my boys’ archrival Liverpool.

So there I stood this May in front of a big screen, fully taking in the irony of four decades of my obsession with football: The greatest footballer in the world (yes!) is an Egyptian who plays for the wrong Premier League club in red.

Ever since Liverpool signed Salah last June, my dad, my brother, his wife and their four children have been in football nirvana. I have tried to hate Salah; I have tried to feign indifference to him. And yet I watched in hi-def as the wrong team in red played Real Madrid in the Champions League final. I had already decided what to do when (not if) Salah scored. I would stay silent and let the Liverpool fans make the noise.

“He has to score early,” I confidently told my companion. “That’s the only way Liverpool can win. They have to stun Real early.”