2026 World Cup: Egypt made real Mondial history, and we have every right to celebrate it

"He had once fallen under the spell of a dream, and from that moment on, the memory of that beautiful transgression would pursue him forever—a moment of freedom, of a lightness too exquisite to endure. It would remain, forever haunting him, like conscience itself."
— Arwa Saleh, The Stillborn

I doubt that when leftist activist and writer Arwa Saleh wrote these lines, she imagined she was describing how millions of Egyptians would feel for three unforgettable weeks — or perhaps for the past four decades, if not throughout much of modern Egyptian history.

Little Egyptian boy wearing Salah's jersey
watching a game between older kids on the banks
of the Nile in Upper Egypt's Al-Minya
"Ahmed Mostafa" 

Egypt's 2026 World Cup campaign was that beautiful dream, and Egyptians could not help but fall under its spell.

Egypt was eliminated in the Round of 16 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup after an epic, deeply controversial match against Argentina. The rest is history.

Eleven days later, I can finally finish this post, which I began writing on 8 July 2026.

Since then, Argentina has defeated Switzerland in another match that raised eyebrows and renewed questions about refereeing decisions, advancing to the semi-finals. It then overcame England in the showdown many football fans had been waiting years to see.

No one could have imagined that so many Egyptians would find themselves supporting England against Argentina.

Yet the impossible happened. 

England, too, experienced the same bitter final minutes, marked by controversial refereeing decisions and an unusually physical game. 

I cannot imagine how Egyptian and English fans who witnessed both matches felt as they watched history seemingly repeat itself.

It was painful to watch because — bias aside — Egypt played better against Argentina than either team did. That only deepened the inevitable question: What if?

In a few hours, Argentina will face Spain in the World Cup final and will most likely lift the trophy.

It has been a week filled with reactions, endless "what ifs," and the familiar chorus of "Stop being dramatic, you filthy Egyptian sore losers."

But we are not sore losers.

Kodak Agfa Presents : Photos of the year “2022 edition”

Another year-ender post I hope that inshallah it will be another tradition in Egyptian Chronicles: The photos of the year.

This is a subjective post because I chose those photos as my favourite for the year 2022, they represent major events in the year which I found significant and they are not too many.

They are without order. I apologize for that. 

For me, this is the photo of the year 2022.

A four years old girl working in a brick factory in Afghanistan sleeping 
after work on one August afternoon "AP"

That photo summarizes the Afghani ongoing forgotten tragedy.

It also represents everything that is wrong in this world my afraid on every level whether social injustice or economic injustice or political injustice.

The whole photo story is heartbreaking.

The photo story is available on AP and those sad photos were taken by photographer Ebrahim Noroozi.

I pray those children will have a better year and future this year.

I do not know the source of this photo or who actually took and I hope that he or she is okay because they are in China. It was taken in Shanghai during the anti- Zero-Covid-19 policy protests.

#ChileNotEgypt : The Story of Chile's coup 1973

This is an indirect Guest blog post I am proud to present. Writer/blogger and tweep Iyad ElBaghdadi wrote in a series of tweets brief history of Chile's coup in 1973 
I wish someone would translate these tweeps in to Arabic
One of our problems in Egypt is that we do not read history whether our own history or other countries' history in order to learn how to avoid mistakes. We do not read history in this way because we are not learned in our education system to do this properly unfortunately.
Ironically and sadly some people warned of having a Romanian Counter revolution scenario in Egypt including people like Alaa Al-Aswany but no one wanted to listen. Some warned of having a Chilean scenario in Egypt but no one wants to listen. Some warned of having another 1954 scenario and are warning of another Nasserite era with its cons before its pros but nobody wants to listen.
I know every country has its own circumstance and time plays an important role but yet again the same mistakes are committed and people are paying the price.
Here are the tweets of Dear Iyad gathered in a storify post below. 

We Have Been the Biggest Losers from Long Time

Yesterday Egypt lost in front of Ghana in the World Cup qualifiers and since then millions of Egypt are mourning the loss of the game in a great grief as if it were the end of the world with no regards to all the losses in all fields of life we shamefully produced in the past 31 years.
It is really ironic and quite sad to see people on TV and social media are extremely demanding enthusiastically the accountability of the Egyptian Football federation’s officials and the team more than the accountability of the Egyptian government officials responsible for setting back Egypt in every bloody field in life.

From Brazil's protests

As facts of life 40% of Egyptians live under the poverty line and 25% of the Egyptians can not read or write according to official numbers in 2012. Our basic education system is considered the worst worldwide according to the world competiveness report in 2013 !! We do not have real scientific research in Egypt , our universities hit rock bottom. We got an energy crisis . We got an unemployment crisis. We got traffic problem and housing problem aside from the shanty towns that can kill millions if we have another 1992 powerful earthquake in Cairo alone.
We live on loans from other countries. We are number no.1 in Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B is spread as well in Upper Egypt. There are hundreds of villages completely forgotten with no clean water access or electricity access in 2013.We got a Nile river crisis everybody forgets. We got a Constitution in making everybody is ignoring. We got laws against the right of protesting made and sent it to the interim president and everybody is ignoring it. Freedoms in Egypt are in real danger in Egypt and yet people care only for a football match score.
I am sorry dear follow Egyptians we have been the biggest losers from long time.

Puyehue Volcano in Chile : Real life Mordor

This is a true photo "AFP"

When I saw the amazing and also scary photos of Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano from Chile , I felt that this is the real life Mordor Tolkien wrote about in his “Lord of the rings” saga.