The silver lining...

OK, it's been quite a night. 11 men went into the field to execute an objective and they have. With peristence. With will power. They did it. However, looming over victory is the sadness most of the educated Egyptians are projecting because of the behaviour of their fellow citizens before and after the match.

The harmonius tone is "If this effort was put to make Egypt a better place, Americans would apply for immigration". There are of course true causes to this tone, like our stance towards Algeria. How we shed over them a certain shade that nearly put them next to Israel in our books. How we allowed ourselves as a country to fall into the trap of a war of words that would drag both countries into the mud. And of course, the ongoing after-game party blocking everywhere.

This tone as I mentioned also goes towards the efforts of the Egyptians in celebrating their team. I know, we overdid it with the flags and the celebrating. But, there is a silver lining. We are not dead. No sir, not dead.

They are alive and united, all they need is a direction.

We are alive, we are capable of uniting in support of our country in its hour of need. We are capable of adopting a national project and standing by it. Giving it as much support and awareness as it needs. So much so that Coca-Cola made such a great commercial advertising the event, you would have missed the brand if you were not concentrating. Did you guys hear the prayers when we played the corners?

Right there in that stadium and in thousands of houses all over the country, we jumped, we sighed and some nearly cried (see what I did there?) at the same time. Every hand, foot and ball had 80 million pairs of eyes fixed on it like lasers.

We have all synced to the same frequency. This means we are one step closer from making this country a better place.

The smart step here is not to reproach people for being over-sympathetic to the cause, it's to make them sympathetic to a bigger cause. People were not just cheering for Trika or Zaki. They were there because they wanted their country to be in the World Cup.

Sidenote: Yes, it is important for the country to be in the World Cup. It's a cash cow, and it's a sign of culture. It denotes that this country has interest in football. I would rather Egypt have interest in football than Melody and Mazzika.

We now have an important piece of information, this country is alive and beating. And this country is missing a cause. A simple cause, not something complicated. Nobody cares about who is the next president. That is the truth. I care because I am cursed with news popping in front of me and having a brain that responds to that crap. But the majority don't. The majority care however about being employed, we can help each other with that. They care about having better education for their kids, that be helped as well. If you sit with yourself, you'll get a ton of ideas.

To conclude, let's see beyond the "negatives" and squeeze the "positives" out.