Egypt’s national football (soccer) team won the African Nations Cup final in Ghana last night. Huge congratulations to them and to their scorer! Muhammad Abu Treika (no. 22).
Abu Treika is probably today the best-known 29-year-old in Africa and perhaps the whole of the Muslim world. If you want to see one amazing recent goal he scored, look at the second goal on this Youtube clip. Abu Treika had already won attention by raising his No.22 shirt at the end of a game in an earlier round of the cup, revealing a tee-shirt underneath that said “Sympathize with Gaza.” (See his explanation of this, to English Al-Jazeera, here.) But the guy is also just an amazing player: intuitive and disciplined at the same time.
For those US or other readers who don’t know much about football the way the whole of the non-US world plays it, or who don’t know much about Abu Treika, Time’s Scott MacLeod has a nice post on Abu Treika, and on the wildly enthusiastic reaction that last night’s win saw in downtown Cairo. (Hat-tip Bram.)
MacLeod writes:
- A midfielder for Egypt’s hugely successful and popular al-Ahly team, he’s been the top-rated player in the country for four straight years. An outfit called the International Federation of Football History and Statistics said a recent poll it sponsored named Aboutreika the world’s most popular footballer, with more than 1 million votes, well ahead of the likes of Ronaldinho.
It is Aboutreika’s character as much as his playing that endears him to his fans. His gesture to the Palestinians was in keeping with his active involvement in humanitarian causes, such as his role as a World Food Program Ambassador Against Hunger. In Egypt, he’s known as a devout, humble man who has not let success go to his head. He has been photographed with his mother, who wears a traditional hijab, or headscarf. “He’s a great player, but he’s also honest and knows his god,” a kid in the cafe wearing a Billabong sweatshirt tells me. Once, as the new young star for the Egyptian Tersana team, Aboutreika refused to sign a contract that elevated his salary way above those of his teammates. “We need to stop this habit of praising an individual player,” he told reporters after the 2006 Cup victory. “It isn’t Aboutreika, but the whole team who got the Cup. Without the others’ efforts, I can’t ever make anything.” His first words after tonight’s victory: “It’s one of the greatest days of my life.”
MacLeod was writing from a downtown coffee shop. (It goes by the significant name of the “Fallujah” coffee shop.) He wrote:
- Egypt, blessed with such an athlete, is desperately in need of a little joy. Everyone agrees that the country has been sliding backwards lately. The flood of Palestinians into Gaza exposed an embarrassing decline in the Egyptian government’s ability to influence developments in the Middle East, even on its own border. The regime has been arresting journalists, bloggers and Islamic fundamentalists in another big domestic crackdown on dissent. Meanwhile, ordinary Egyptians are grumbling about the higher price of such things as electricity, water and bread. Even government employees have been going on strike. “We wanted a reason to be happy,” says Salah, one of the customers at the Falluja coffee shop. “Egyptians are feeling choked. Everything is no good.”
Except, that is, a certain No. 22 footballer who sent Egyptians by the millions into the streets tonight. After the winning goal, Gamal, a brick layer next to me, sits down and kisses his fingers. “Thanks to God,” he says. “It’s a victory for my country, my people.” As I passed Tahrir Square on the way home after the match, gathering crowds were waving the Egyptian flag and whooping it up. And they were chanting, “A-bou Trei-ka! A-bou Trei-ka! A-bou Trei-ka!”
thanks for that article came from heart of someone i dunno his nationality but u know..everything u said is true ..we all love this player ..well all loves egypt that’s why egyption ppl hate to travel or stay away of thair gr8 mother ..Egypt or let it be ‘Masr’ ..i wanna all the nations ..whateva east ..west ..the egyptions are good ppl ..loves and welcomes every stranger ..as he loves us ..we also as our Holly Qura’n says ..we r the best fighters on earth ..love and strength ..u choose ..thnx Shehata ..thnx Trika ..thnx every one helped ..prayed , left his hands to the sky ..smiled .. thnx Allah
Wow, Helena, I did not know you also knew footie as well!
Tell me, do you think John Paintsil plays better as a defender or in the midfield?
Who is John Paintsil?
Why he is the Ghanian international who, during the World Cup, pulled out an Israeli flag in celebration after a goal. He did so because he sympathizes with the Israeli people and, during three years in Israel playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv, came to truly love and appreciate the hospitality he was shown and the opportunity he was offered (he now plays for West Ham!)
Funny, however, that the reaction from the Arab world to Paintsil was much different than that to Abu Treika. The Arab world was furious. How DARE he show sympathy and solidarity with Israelis! Certainly, you would be the first to condemn this hypocritical behavior, would you not?
You also apparently failed to notice an even more monumental accomplishment in Mideast Sports, when Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram won the Australian Open doubles event. A truly monumental accomplishment!
Even better, Erlich and Ram are considering applying for a visa to play in Dubai (Shahar Pe’er, Israel’s top 20 women’s player, is already scheduled to play in Qatar!). Certainly, anyone who wanted to highlight peace and coexistence would want to discuss this, would they not?
It’s just so funny, that even when you shift the topic to something like sports, that you have to somehow tie it into your pathological hatred of Israel.
So sad, Joshua, that you would imagine that anything I’ve written above ties in any way into the “pathological hatred of Israel” that you keep baselessly accusing me of harboring. I did not mention Israel. I mentioned the action Abu Treika took at the end of the game in Sudan– without commenting on it.
Why should the Arab and Muslim worlds not feel proud of Abu Treika? How does that have anything at all to do with Israel? (Peacemaking, you might care to notice, is not a zero-sum game. It’s not the case that if people admire Abu Treika, they hate Israel. It’s not the case that if people sympathize with Palestinians they don’t also sympathize with Israelis. I guess you might learn some of these things when you get a little older and wiser?)
“It’s not the case that if people sympathize with Palestinians they don’t also sympathize with Israelis.”
Ok, so did Abu Treika wear a shirt saying “Sympathize with Sderot?”
And if the Arab world sympathized with Israelis, why was there such outrage at John Paintsil?
In any event, do you think Paintsil is a better defender or midfielder? How do you assess his intuition and discipline?
While I don’t agree with the alleged outburst against Paintsill, it’s understandable that some should react that way.
As one Gulf leader put it, if Israel wants to be loved it should do something lovable.
Hey NP, it’s not so much that Israel wants to be loved, as much as it doesn’t want to be threatened with non-existence from the neighbors.
In any event, there are plenty of people, Jewish and non-Jewish, who greatly admire the state of Israel, such as Mr. Paintsil. At the very least, even if the Arab world can’t share in that love, they shouldn’t squeal and whine when someone else expresses it.
You’re not comparing like with like: Abu Treika did not display the flag of another nation while representing his own in a major tournament: rather he used the occasion to make a humanitarian gesture of behalf of a neighbouring country.I don’t remember there being any particular reaction from the Arab world regarding the Ghanian player. What I do recall, however, is that many Ghanaians were rather annoyed that a player who was representing his country in the world cup, should display the flag of another nation on such an important occasion for his country.
I know it’s hard for an Israeli to imagine what it must be like to play in the finals of a world cup, but do you really think that Israelis would be happy if one of their players displayed an – oh lets’ just say Russian – flag following a match in which he played for his ‘national’ team?
“I don’t remember there being any particular reaction from the Arab world regarding the Ghanian player.”
Then you probably weren’t paying attention at the time.
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=129235
http://www.articles-hub.com/Article/77233.html
Some people from Gaza may have been puzzled and I don’t begrudge them. But the outrage didn’t come from Ghana, it came from the Arab world, particularly Egypt.
As for knowing what it’s like to have your team playing in the World Cup finals, I’m not Israeli, I’m American. So I do have some idea of what that’s like.