Cairo - No matter how hard a Cairene might try, it has been impossible to escape talk of Egypt's Wednesday World Cup qualifier match against Algeria. "I stopped taking taxis to work, I got so sick of the talk-radio announcers and their stupid insults against Algerians," said one young Cairene, who gave her name only as Yasmine.
"But then I found that they were playing patriotic songs on the metro, on a loop," she said. "It's impossible to escape."
"I like football," she hastened to add. "I just object to the government's using the match to distract us from everything else in the country."
Hers was a minority opinion. All of Cairo erupted in a single great roar when Egypt scored in the last minute of overtime against Algeria last Saturday night to give "The Pharaohs" the 2-0 victory they needed to stay alive to play again in Sudan.
Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets at once, waving flags, banging pots and pans and brandishing homemade aerosol-can flame-throwers.
Life in the Arab world's most populous capital has seemed to pause in the days since. Advertisers have sought to cash in on the fervour. A popular local radio station launched a "let's pray for a win" campaign, urging people to pray before the match. Newspapers and websites have joined in.
The high emotions have rankled some, particularly following violence in Algeria and Cairo around Saturday's match.
Egyptian singer and actor Ahmed Mekki has released an Arabic hip-hop song entitled "Wake Up!" asking Egyptian and Algerian fans to remember that this is, after all, just a game, and wondering why they did not seem as concerned when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
The crowds have turned violent in some cases. Cairo police said that 20 Algerian fans were injured in clashes after the match. The following day, fans in Algeria burned and looted the compound of Egypt's Orascom Telecom company in Algeria.
Naguib Sawiris, Orascom's chairman, on Tuesday said it might be better to postpone the match to allow "escalating" passions to cool, and that he was evacuating the company's Egyptian staff and their families from Algiers.
Algeria, Egypt and Sudan will all deploy extra police on the streets to prevent future violence. According to local media reports, even the French city of Marseilles, home to a large Algerian population, and Kuwait City, home to a large Egyptian population, will deploy hundreds of extra police to forestall violence.
The passions have had diplomatic repercussions. Algeria and Egypt have both summoned the other's ambassadors to register their concern about the safety of their citizens.
Sporting officials have not been immune to the high emotions. At a meeting of football officials from both countries in the Sudanese capital, the head of the Algerian football federation refused to embrace his Egyptian counterpart, the Algerian daily al-Watan reported Wednesday.
"I don't need for you to kiss me here," Algeria's Mohammed Raouraoua told Egypt's Samir Zahir.
"You should have welcomed us better in Cairo and prevented our team and our supporters from being attacked," he said. "Your behaviour scandalized us."
Raouraoua accused Zahir of fomenting the violence in Cairo.
"He is behind all the events that occurred, notably the savage attack on us," he told reporters in Khartoum.
The tensions follow a rivalry that has simmered for decades. Fans rioted when Egypt beat Algeria in 1989 to qualify for the World Cup. Neither team has qualified since.
In the weeks leading up to the match, Egyptian and Algerian fans have gone to war online. In a video posted to the website YouTube, an Algerian singer accused the Egyptian team of eating during the Ramadan fast to prepare for their match against Rwanda.
"How can they qualify for the World Cup after committing this sin?" the singer asked.
Egyptian fans produced an Arabic hip-hop track mocking the Algerians for their French-inflected Arabic, a dig at Algeria's sensitive colonial history. In another video, Egyptian fans burn an Algerian flag.
Faced with such high passions, it is perhaps little wonder that Orascom's Sawiris on Tuesday worried about what would happen if Egypt wins on Wednesday night - and what would happen if they lose.
