From dad jokes with Mo Salah to pessimistic barbers and aunties, Egypt is greeting the 2026 World Cup with humour that reflects what many fans feel: they adore the national team, but they don’t really trust them.
In one of the most widely shared World Cup ads on Egyptian social media, Mo Salah is not scoring goals or delivering emotional speeches about destiny. Instead, he is stuck on a video call with actor Moustafa Gharieb, who bombards him with pharaoh‑themed dad jokes and urges Egypt to show no mercy at the World Cup.
Former minister of tourism and antiquities Zahi Hawass turns up at the end to complete the pharaoh gag.
The whole thing is goofy, affectionate and endearingly defensive. It understands and tries to ease a nationwide fear of another early exit from the World Cup. Instead of pessimism about the team’s performance, these ads give Egyptians something to laugh about before the inevitable stress tied to watching the games.
Telecom companies have been mining that space for years, and Orange’s slogan this time is basically a punchline on a billboard: “To all the doubters, this time we’re going all the way.”
The joke, of course, is that almost everyone is a doubter. In one spot, defender Hossam Abdel Megid is having a quiet family dinner when his aunt insists he keep a date for a coming wedding. When he says he will be in the US with the team, the table bursts out laughing.
"Don’t worry," they tell him. "Egypt never lasts that long." Abdel Megid leaps up, issuing mock‑heroic proclamations about how this team will go further than any before. The humour lands because it is rooted in a familiar dual feeling: of love for the team and what it stands for, and zero confidence in its World Cup record.
Another Orange instalment puts left-wing-back Ahmed Fatooh in the barber’s chair. He asks for a cut so short it will survive a long spell abroad. The barber smirks and reassures him that he will be back for a tidy‑up after the group stage. Fatooh dramatically rips off his bib and protests that people should have more faith in the team.
A third Orange spot follows centre‑back Ramy Rabia on a date. His companion, assuming Egypt will bow out early as usual, tells him they should meet up in Miami after the first round of matches. Rabia bristles, insisting they will still be in the tournament, and storms off in mock outrage. Each sketch ends with exaggerated indignation and a wink to the camera.
The joke is not on the team; it is on the ingrained pessimism of the fans around them, who are already planning an early flight home.
Almost-wins and near‑misses
This is not the first time advertisers have leaned into Egypt’s World Cup fatalism.
Nearly a decade ago, another hugely popular spot starring former midfielder Magdy Abdelghany was widely touted for its honest hilarity. The ad turned his penalty at Italia ’90 – for years Egypt’s only World Cup goal – into a running joke.
In the ad, aired by Vodafone, Abdelghany plays up to the fact that he has dined out on that one moment for decades, mugging for the camera as if he alone carries the country’s World Cup legacy on his shoulders.
That pessimism is not irrational. Egypt are continental royalty, with a record seven Africa Cup of Nations titles, but their World Cup story is full of almost-wins and near‑misses.
They qualified in 1934, 1990 and 2018, and now 2026, yet they have never won a match at the tournament and have scored painfully few goals. Older viewers remember the 56‑year drought between 1934 and 1990, only broken by Hossam Hassan’s famous goal against Algeria.
Younger fans are haunted by more recent scars, such as the Afcon final defeat to Senegal and the laser‑lit penalty shoot‑out in Dakar that cost Egypt a place at Qatar 2022.
With that in mind, it is the lighter campaigns that tend to land best: the jokes feel more honest than any straight‑faced promise of glory. A purely triumphant national campaign risks sounding like wishful thinking, but comedy gives advertisers room to acknowledge what fans already say among themselves.
You can say “we always go out early” in a joke that would feel cruel in a straight news report.
What makes this year’s adverts interesting is that they sit alongside a deeper narrative, around the team’s qualifying for the World Cup.
Egypt’s coach is now Hossam Hassan, the striker who scored the goal that took the country to Italy in 1990 and who remains just ahead of Salah on the all‑time scoring chart. He is the first Egyptian to reach the World Cup as both player and manager.
Hassan talks publicly about “showing a better face” than in previous tournaments and finally winning a game on the biggest stage. For older fans, his presence on the touchline is a throwback to a time when they believed Egypt could punch above its weight. For younger ones, he is a half‑mythical name their parents talk about while they themselves have grown up in the age of Salah.
Salah, meanwhile, carries his own unfinished business. He arrives in North America not just as the global superstar of this generation, but as a man chasing a World Cup moment to match his reputation.
He has the Champions League and the Premier League; what he does not have is a meaningful World Cup impact, after the injury in 2018 and the playoff heartbreak four years later.
That is the subtext in the Vodafone spot: beneath the joking around with Moustafa Gharieb and the pharaonic cosplay with Hawass, there is the expectation that Salah will be the one to finally rewrite Egypt’s World Cup story or at least add a second win and a couple more goals to the record.
The humorous ads sit in contrast to the more solemn, image‑building material around the team, which was also in circulation this year.
The Egyptian Football Association’s World Cup video dresses the squad in full pharaonic regalia, adapting a fan’s social‑media concept into a glossy montage of warriors marching towards North America.
It leans into pride and heritage, insisting that the national team is bigger than any one tournament. Global sponsors such as Adidas and Coca‑Cola do something similar, folding Salah and his teammates into broader campaigns about lifestyle, self‑expression and the dream of travelling to watch the World Cup, rather than promising specific results.
Between the self‑mocking telecom spots and the chest‑swelling official promos, you get a pretty accurate snapshot of where Egypt is on the eve of the tournament: a country that can laugh at its own fatalism, flinch at the memory of missed penalties and line up once more behind a team they do not have complete faith in.
