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Out of Dark, Onto Field
By JAMES MONTAGUE
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — Bob Bradley stood at attention as a full military band played the anthem of his adoptive country. In front of him, Egypt’s national soccer team, which he began managing about nine months ago, was lined up on the field at the 80,000-capacity Borg el Arab military stadium, the players singing proudly.
They were minutes from kicking off their first 2014 World Cup qualifier, against Mozambique on Friday. Under normal circumstances, the players’ voices would be drowned out by the roar of soccer-obsessed Egyptians. But these were not normal circumstances, not since the revolution.
Instead, the players’ voices and the music of the band reverberated eerily through the vast, empty stands. Bradley’s first competitive match as Egypt’s coach was to be played behind closed doors: a series of tragic events befell soccer here after the revolution in 2011, which swept President Hosni Mubarak from power.
In the security vacuum that followed, violence flared at local games, causing the Egyptian Football Association to suspend the league.
In February, after the league had been restarted, 74 people were killed as fans of the club El Masry attacked supporters of the country’s biggest club, Al Ahly, at a league match in Port Said. Most were crushed in an incident that many in Egypt believe was connected to the role that Al Ahly’s fan group, Ultras Ahlawy, played in the revolution. The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has blamed simple thuggery.
Many of Bradley’s players had been in Port Said that night. Mohamed Aboutrika, a celebrated Egyptian midfielder, held one fan as he died. The league season was canceled. Since then, no soccer has been played in Egypt with fans in attendance.
Three days before the Mozambique match, Bradley sat in the lobby of his team’s hotel near Borg el Arab stadium wearing his red Egyptian soccer jersey. He had just put his team through one of its final practices before the match.
For Bradley, 54, all of this is a dramatic and head-spinning change. Less than a year ago he was the coach of the men’s national team for the United States, having guided it to the Round of 16 in the 2010 World Cup and signed to remain as coach through the next World Cup, in Brazil, in 2014. But instead, he was dismissed last July and, not long after, ended up in Egypt. The change is stark; the objective not at all dissimilar.
“This is all about trying to qualify for the World Cup: that’s the dream; that’s the mission; that’s what’s pushing us all every day,” Bradley said. “There’s a responsibility to build a team that represents the country in the right way and makes people proud.”
That, of course, would have been the mission statement when he was hired in September in a febrile post-Mubarak, post-revolution atmosphere. His first match was a narrow exhibition loss to Brazil in the Qatari capital, Doha, in November. It was to be his last for many months.
When Bradley arrived at Cairo International Stadium on Feb. 1 to see a league match between two local clubs, to assess players ahead of World Cup qualification, news filtered through that dozens of fans had died at the stadium in Port Said. Bradley watched the riot unfold on television as many of the players he had called up to the national team ran for their lives.
Full Hundred
By JAMES MONTAGUE
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — Bob Bradley stood at attention as a full military band played the anthem of his adoptive country. In front of him, Egypt’s national soccer team, which he began managing about nine months ago, was lined up on the field at the 80,000-capacity Borg el Arab military stadium, the players singing proudly.
They were minutes from kicking off their first 2014 World Cup qualifier, against Mozambique on Friday. Under normal circumstances, the players’ voices would be drowned out by the roar of soccer-obsessed Egyptians. But these were not normal circumstances, not since the revolution.
Instead, the players’ voices and the music of the band reverberated eerily through the vast, empty stands. Bradley’s first competitive match as Egypt’s coach was to be played behind closed doors: a series of tragic events befell soccer here after the revolution in 2011, which swept President Hosni Mubarak from power.
In the security vacuum that followed, violence flared at local games, causing the Egyptian Football Association to suspend the league.
In February, after the league had been restarted, 74 people were killed as fans of the club El Masry attacked supporters of the country’s biggest club, Al Ahly, at a league match in Port Said. Most were crushed in an incident that many in Egypt believe was connected to the role that Al Ahly’s fan group, Ultras Ahlawy, played in the revolution. The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has blamed simple thuggery.
Many of Bradley’s players had been in Port Said that night. Mohamed Aboutrika, a celebrated Egyptian midfielder, held one fan as he died. The league season was canceled. Since then, no soccer has been played in Egypt with fans in attendance.
Three days before the Mozambique match, Bradley sat in the lobby of his team’s hotel near Borg el Arab stadium wearing his red Egyptian soccer jersey. He had just put his team through one of its final practices before the match.
For Bradley, 54, all of this is a dramatic and head-spinning change. Less than a year ago he was the coach of the men’s national team for the United States, having guided it to the Round of 16 in the 2010 World Cup and signed to remain as coach through the next World Cup, in Brazil, in 2014. But instead, he was dismissed last July and, not long after, ended up in Egypt. The change is stark; the objective not at all dissimilar.
“This is all about trying to qualify for the World Cup: that’s the dream; that’s the mission; that’s what’s pushing us all every day,” Bradley said. “There’s a responsibility to build a team that represents the country in the right way and makes people proud.”
That, of course, would have been the mission statement when he was hired in September in a febrile post-Mubarak, post-revolution atmosphere. His first match was a narrow exhibition loss to Brazil in the Qatari capital, Doha, in November. It was to be his last for many months.
When Bradley arrived at Cairo International Stadium on Feb. 1 to see a league match between two local clubs, to assess players ahead of World Cup qualification, news filtered through that dozens of fans had died at the stadium in Port Said. Bradley watched the riot unfold on television as many of the players he had called up to the national team ran for their lives.
Full Hundred
