One of them caused a war... the 5 most politically heated matches in the history of the World Cup and its qualifiers

"More than just a game," this is the famous phrase that is always mentioned when talking about the relationship of the round witch with politics, and in fact the history book assures us of this matter, because of a football match, a war arose, and through another, countries tried to whiten their blood-stained political record.

In this report, we present 5 of the most prominent matches whose atmosphere was politically charged and affected or directly influenced the world of politics.

Israel and Wales.. the abandoned occupation state finds no competitor

Only 10 years had passed since the founding of the occupying state, and the blood of the Palestinian victims had not yet dried up, and the media's political propaganda did not find enough time to turn the facts around and show Israel as the democratic state facing violence and terrorism.

We are now in 1958, with the qualifiers for the World Cup in Sweden that was held later that year.

At the time, the nascent occupying state fell into an Asian group that included Turkey, which withdrew because it saw itself as a European country that should play with the Europeans, and Indonesia, which withdrew due to its refusal to play in Tel Aviv, and FIFA did not allow its request to play in a neutral stadium at the time.

After Indonesia's withdrawal, Israel moved to the second stage of the qualifiers, which at that time merged the countries of Asia with Africa. It had to manipulate Egypt, which, of course, refused confrontation in light of the intensification of the conflict between the two countries at the time, and Sudan's position was similar as well.

And because FIFA rules did not allow Israel to qualify without playing any match in the qualifiers, it had to play a playoff match with a European country from the nine countries that could not qualify directly from its groups.

Wales had given up hope of catching up to the World Cup in Sweden, after finishing second in their strong group, but the Welsh national team was given a new chance to qualify if they defeated the occupying nation, while the strong relations between Britain and Israel helped to establish this match.

And the match was actually held in January 1958, when Israel hosted the Wales team in a match that was highly politicized, as the occupying power, which everyone refused to play with, was keen to show itself in the best way in that match, so it received the Welsh players the best reception, and granted all A player with a gift box of Jaffa oranges, and the match ended with Wales winning 2-0 for the occupying Power.

The United States and Iran... to defeat the "Great Satan"

"Many of the martyrs' families expect us to win. We will win for them."

(Khodadad Azizi, player of the Iranian team, referring to the Iranian victims in the Iran-Iraq war, which Iran believes the United States encouraged Saddam Hussein to fight)

Twenty years after the outbreak of the Iranian Islamic revolution against the US-backed Shah, and after the nascent Islamic regime in Iran established a regime that formulated slogans and special goals, the most important of which was the slogan "Death to America, the Great Satan", the two countries were drawn into one group in the 1998 World Cup. Which was held in France, just as it did 24 years later in the current edition of the tournament in Qatar.

At that time, relations between Washington and Tehran reached the peak of their complexity after two decades of events and tensions, which began in 1979 when enthusiastic Iranian students attacked the US embassy and detained 52 employees.

This incident led to the official severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In 1988, the crisis deepened after two American missiles shot down an Iranian Airlines plane, killing 290 Iranians, including 66 children, and the United States refused to apologize for this behavior or take responsibility.

In 1998, the two teams faced each other for the first time, while the world waited for this match after all those heated events and hostile feelings between the two countries.

The match came at a time when Muhammad Khatami ascended to the Iranian presidency after the 1997 elections, and he is the man affiliated with the reformist movement in the country who carried a new thought aimed at reforming Iran's relations with Western countries and opening the door to dialogue with the Americans.

The match was played in the midst of a heavy presence of riot police, and the American players offered to shake hands with the Iranian players (the mentor refused that the Iranians be the ones to go to shake hands and the American team agreed to do so), and in return, the Iranian players presented their American counterparts - with instructions from the Iranian authority - some gifts in The stadium was in full view of everyone, and then the historic match started, and ended with Iran winning 2-1.

Another far-reaching political aspect emerged, linked to the Islamic regime and its Iranian opponents, as an altercation took place inside the Iranian stadiums themselves as a result of the presence of some supporters of the People's Mujahedin Organization, who raised slogans opposing the Iranian regime.

Egypt and Algeria.. The inheritance of power passes through the gate of the World Cup

Egypt won the 2008 African Cup of Nations, and presented an unprecedented performance thanks to the golden generation of its national team as it was known at the time, and people in Egypt talked about that if this team ascended to the World Cup, it might achieve an advanced position in it.

At the same time, Algeria had not originally qualified for the 2008 African Nations Championship, and then when the draw came and Egypt was placed with Algeria in the World Cup qualifiers, some thought that the Egyptian team's task would be easy.

Unfortunately for the "Pharaohs", the players who represented the Algerian national team in the qualifiers were the buds of Algeria's new golden generation, which quickly brought Algerian football back to the world of continental and then global lights.

The successes of the Egyptian team were a distinctive tool of the political system, as this team was able to make the masses happy, at a time when the regime failed to make them happy on the economic or social level.

And then the president's son, Gamal Mubarak, appeared a lot with the stars of the Egyptian national team, while international and local newspapers talked about the plan to inherit power in the country.

The Egyptian national team, despite its star-studded arsenal, was unable to reserve the qualification ticket for the 2010 World Cup easily as it was expected, as it found itself required to win with two goals without a response to the "Desert Warriors" in order to impose a playoff match.

The Egyptian team won the required result, and the Egyptian streets celebrated as they had not celebrated before, and the team became a step away from the dream that had been absent for twenty years, the dream of qualifying for the World Cup, and it only had to renew its victory over Algeria in a playoff match in the Sudanese city of Omdurman. .

(Reuters)

At that time, the Egyptian regime was crystallizing the dream of reaching the World Cup as a popular goal for the Egyptian nation, a dream that will be realized thanks to the support of the president and his son, and here came the task of the Egyptian media directed by the regime, which adopted a politicized narrative of the match that contributed to creating a state of hatred and hostility against Algeria and its team. With the aim of uniting the masses against an external opponent, even in a football match.

As a result of this shipment, the Algerian team's tanker was pelted with stones in the Cairo match, and the Egyptian media accused the Algerian team of breaking the windows of their bus from the inside.

On the other hand, the Algerian media engaged in a wave of counter-charging, as Algerian newspapers published incorrect news about the killing of Algerian fans in Egypt.

We can then imagine the situation that preceded the Omdurman match between the fans of the two countries.

Egypt lost the match, which was secured by 15,000 Sudanese soldiers. This meant unprecedented frustration in the Egyptian street.

The president and his son did not succeed in crossing into the dream, and from here the Egyptian media, directed by the regime, began to spread misleading information. It claimed that the Egyptian delegation had been subjected to brutal attacks by the Algerians, and the Egyptian artist, Mohamed Fouad, declared: "We are slaughtering here." He was conducting this conversation while sitting in a safe place.

England and Argentina... you have an advanced army and we have Maradona

"A quarrel between two bald men over a comb."

(Argentine writer Jose Luis Borges describing the Argentine-English conflict over the Falkland Islands)

In 1982, the Falkland War took place between Britain and Argentina, and ended with the loss of the Argentine army, which tried to wrest the Falkland Islands from the English forces, the strongest at the time in terms of equipment and equipment, which had controlled the islands since 1833. Although most Argentines believe that the war was a bad decision from the military dictatorship Which was ruling the country at the time, they believe that the English occupy the disputed islands.

On the other hand, Britain believes that the islands are inhabited by Europeans who themselves demand British sovereignty over them.

About 3,000 people now live on the island and enjoy self-rule as belonging to a British territory, after a referendum was held in 2013 in which they preferred to remain part of Britain, but Argentina did not recognize this referendum and its results.

Four years after the war, one of the most politically charged matches pitted Argentina and England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

The stands and players on the field were in an atmosphere of extreme competition, and although Maradona said before the match that it was just a sports match that had nothing to do with politics, the Argentine captain and number 10 played with the enthusiasm of the soldier, not the player, and was able to score the most controversial goal in the history of the game. He scored it with his hand, but the referee did not notice.

In the press conference after the match, he said that I scored the goal with a little bit of my head and a little bit of the “Hand of God.” In the same match, Maradona succeeded in scoring another goal that is considered one of the most beautiful goals of his career ever after he dodged the English players from the middle of the field, and the match ended with a score of two goals to one. One for Argentina.

Honduras and El Salvador .. a match that sparked a war

Perhaps this is one of the strangest stories of the World Cup qualifiers with politics.

Because of a match between Honduras and El Salvador in the 1970 World Cup qualifiers in Mexico, a real war broke out, known as the "Hundred Hour War".

Under the rule of two military dictatorships in the two countries, problems began to erupt between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969, when Honduras decided to expropriate the lands of about 300,000 Salvadoran immigrants on its territory.

In light of this charged atmosphere, the draw came to a confrontation between the two teams in the World Cup qualifiers.

Honduras won the first leg at home with two goals to one in the midst of mass riots in the midst of the political crisis between the two countries, and in the return match El Salvador won three without a response in a match that was also not devoid of riots, so the two teams then moved to a playoff match through which El Salvador qualified.

The loss resulted in a fierce attack against Salvadoran immigrants in Honduras from the angry masses at the loss of their team and loaded with political anger from immigrants, so El Salvador officially cut off its relationship with Honduras.

The matter did not stop at this point, as El Salvador declared war on its neighbor in light of a severe economic crisis that was multiplied by the return of about 12,000 Salvadoran immigrants from Honduras as a result of the hostile climate that followed the matches between the two teams in the qualifiers, and the war lasted 100 hours and El Salvador was about to occupy Honduras had it not been for the interventions. that eventually led to a peace agreement in the same year.

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