The World Cup Between Two Worlds

I watched the World Cup only once while actually living in the country that went on to win the trophy. That was in France in 1998, when I was studying in Paris. The events of that period have remained vivid in my memory ever since, reinforced by photographs I kept and scattered notes I wrote at the time, culminating in France’s victory over Brazil in the final and its first-ever World Cup title.

The scenes of that “French World Cup” have stayed with me over the years, resurfacing on many occasions and prompting comparisons with what happens in other African and Arab countries. None of those countries has won the World Cup, although some have advanced to the later stages of the tournament, earned praise for an “honourable performance,” or seen their national teams win an African championship.

France’s first World Cup triumph undoubtedly unleashed enormous celebrations and nights of revelry. Hundreds of thousands poured into the streets, public squares, metro stations, and railway terminals to celebrate the victory. Yet I was left with a deep sense that these celebrations were different from their counterparts in our part of the world. I came to believe that the difference lay in the fact that footballing victories in countries such as France exist alongside other victories—industrial, scientific, political, and cultural—which temper the intensity of public emotion without diminishing the joy itself.

The fact that Zinedine Zidane, the French player of Algerian origin, scored two goals against Brazil in the final gave millions of French citizens of Arab and other immigrant backgrounds an additional sense that the national team represented them. They participated with remarkable enthusiasm in the celebrations, in which violence remained the exception—unlike what happens today, when the French capital sometimes witnesses violent incidents following both victories and defeats by its football clubs.

My second European experience came in a country renowned for its calm and civic order: Sweden. After taking part in a conference on the island of Visby, I travelled to Stockholm just as the Swedish national team was preparing to face Switzerland in the 2018 World Cup.

I was astonished to find life proceeding entirely as usual. There were virtually no outward signs of anticipation or celebration, and almost no one seemed to be talking about football or about the match that was due to begin only a few hours later. At four o’clock, I sat in a café to watch the game with a large crowd. Most supported Sweden enthusiastically, rising from their seats whenever the team missed a scoring opportunity. Yet there was also a group that watched with an extraordinary degree of calm, their reaction not greatly different from my own neutral stance.

What was particularly striking was that after Sweden won the match, I did not hear a single car horn in the city centre, except from a few taxi drivers near the central station who, judging by their appearance, seemed to be of foreign origin. The Swedish scene thus appeared different even from the French experience—and from that of other European countries, where football victories are celebrated more exuberantly than in Sweden, though still with less intensity than in our own societies.

The fact that celebrations of a national team’s victory in a European country such as Sweden may be more subdued than those in France, Italy, or Spain—all World Cup-winning nations—does not mean that these countries celebrate in the same way as societies in the Arab world, South America, or Africa.

The celebrations I witnessed in France after its World Cup victory were immense, but they were still different from what one might see in countries of the “Global South.” The distinction cannot simply be attributed to cultural differences, emotional temperament, or the customs and characteristics of individual societies. Such explanations may be more relevant when comparing France with Sweden, but they do not fully explain the contrast with countries of the Global South.

In many of those societies, passion for football can become a form of compensation for political and economic failures rather than merely a source of entertainment and collective joy. In more developed countries, by contrast, the intensity of football-related emotions—whether joy in victory or sorrow in defeat—is moderated by achievements in other spheres: scientific and technological progress, economic and political success, international influence, cultural vitality, and more.

There is no doubt that the way peoples and societies respond to football and the World Cup demonstrates that joy in victory and sorrow in defeat are universal human experiences that transcend borders and cultures. Yet their intensity and the ways in which they are expressed vary considerably from one context and country to another.

Consider, for example, the intense politicisation and bitter verbal exchanges between Egypt and Algeria following their famous football match in Sudan in 2009. Nothing comparable occurred, at least in the same form, following the horrific violence surrounding the 1985 match between Liverpool and Juventus. In that case, a functioning system of justice, accountability, and transparency identified and prosecuted those responsible for the violence without unleashing campaigns of sweeping condemnation or abuse directed at an entire people.

Violence, joy in victory, and grief in defeat will remain phenomena that cut across cultures and societies. The difference lies in their intensity, their limits, and in the ability of a state governed by the rule of law to hold wrongdoers accountable while fostering a social culture that rejects sweeping generalisations.

Football fans are part of a people; they are not the whole people. And victories in the economic, scientific, and industrial spheres can help keep the emotions generated by victory or defeat on the football pitch within proportion.