One Two Three...Viva l'Algerie

Women don’t usually hold strong views about football, unless its a big tournament, All Algerian women follow football when Algeria is involved in some championship or tournament so I guess that's a rare occasion because lets face it folks, we never qualify for anything!

We qualified for the world cup last year and we thought hurrah Algerian football is going to put Algeria back on the map, well that didn’t last beyond 3 games and it put Algeria back on the map but for the wrong reasons, yes yes I hear you and all those Football critics or analysts or what ever the term to describe them is say we played good ball, we have a young team that needs more games together to be ready to face world class teams such as England etc...But the world attention shifted from our football "skills" to the Algerian masses getting on planes and conquering Africa to support their team, our patriotism and nationalism took over all our senses as our hooligans spread across Africa to Egypt, Sudan and then South Africa to follow their players for support but most of all to prove the Egyptians wrong. Egypt our football nemesis although the football related hate has taken over other areas and covered our hate for Egyptian movies, Egyptian food, Egyptology and Sharm El Cheikh, even now amid the violent riots and revolution taking place in Egypt we Algerians support their cause but you wont find one Algerian putting the Egyptian flag on their Facebook profile picture as they did for Tunisia.

Coming back to my initial thought on women and Football, during the very high tension games of the first round of qualifying games of the WC, I realised why women don't watch football, I did some research in fact and found that women just do not have the stamina to watch a football match not because the players are not wearing pink and we don’t get a snog every time a gooal is scored (wish) but because its too much tension, myself, I had a heart rate of someone climbing Kilimanjaro and I was fidgeting until the 1st half was over and knew instantly I couldn’t last through the 2nd half of the game, it simply isn't bearable whereas men keep quite and watch in such adoration and patience...I am sure their anguish is more than they let out!

Add: I forgot to mention what the slogan is about for our non Algerian readers, One, Two, three viva l'algerie or as postcards in Algeria depict it One TOW three Viva l'algerie. is a football chant started by a hooligan in Algeria years ago and it was a street and stadium kind of cheer until it became mainstream and official during the 2010 world cup. I love it :)