Friends reunited in football fever after chance cafe meeting

Fawzi Mohammed Nasser, from Tunisia, centre, and other football fans react to a missed Algerian goal during their match against the United States at the Aroma Cafe in Ras al Khaimah.

RAS AL KHAIMAH // Nobody said it wouldn't get political. As soon as the door of his taxi slammed shut, Abdulla Mohammed, 33, was ready with his verdict: "I'm going for USA. I like Algeria but I'm from Egypt. Before I played football and now I drive a taxi. Khalas! Today I can't even watch the match. But money's money."

Arab expatriates lucky enough to escape from work crowded into cafes along Al Qawasim Corniche to catch the Algeria versus US game. The streets were deserted, and each goalmouth scramble brought cries that echoed off cafes walls, as the room resounded to groans and cheers. At one end of the Corniche, Egyptian cafe owners laid down an order to support the US, in an act of defiance against the Algerians who had dashed their World Cup dreams.

"Sure, America! We need Algeria to go out," said the owner of the Prince Cafe. At the other end of the Corniche, the mood was altogether more conciliatory. "Of course, we are Arab. Our blood will go for Algeria," said Saeed al Mehairi, a 55-year-old Emirati. But his eyes remained fixed on his cards, with his group of three friends the only customers at the Aroma Cafe left unstirred by the game. No man, perhaps, was as animated as Tarek Benchabane, an Algerian, who seemed to have passion enough to carry his 35 million countrymen. Of which, he said, there were only four or five in RAK.

Mr Benchabane, 29, spent the match with his head in his hands - first his right hand, then his left, then his right again. He sighed and furrowed his brows and beat his feet against the ground in a desperate expenditure of nervous energy. And it was Mr Benchabane who led the crowd in a chant of his own: "One, two, three! Vive Algerie!" It was this kind of passion that had first caught the eye of his Palestinian friend, Adham Said.

The friends first met in 2001, when Mr Said left his home in the Gaza Strip to study architecture at Constantine University in Algeria. "The Algerians gave a lot for the Palestinian people. They give them their rights, they give them hope," Mr Said said. For five years at university, Mr Said and Mr Benchabane knuckled down to get through their studies, enjoying games of football in their free time. "We were very close," said Mr Benchabane. "After our studies we saw each other, but he left for the capital."

After graduation, Mr Said moved to Algiers, 500km from the town of Constantine. Mr Benchabane moved to the nearby town of Mila. Busy with their new careers, the friends eventually lost touch. Three years passed. But last week, when Mr Said arrived to cheer on Algeria against England at the Aroma Cafe, one man in a suit caught his eye among the throng leaping forward to vent their emotions. It was none other than his old friend Tarek.

The architects had both lived in RAK for over a year. Both were Thursday night regulars at Aroma Cafe but had not met until World Cup passions reunited them once more. It was a serendipitous moment, straight out of an old Hollywood classic. "I couldn't believe my eyes," Mr Benchabane said. "C'etait une belle surprise." "He thought that I would have gone to my country because it had been eight years since I went to Gaza," said Mr Said. "But now we cross paths in this beautiful country."

The tale is proof that, politics aside, football is a game that unites rather than divides. And so the old friends arrived for the US and Algeria match together. "It would be nice to beat the Americans," Mr Benchabane said. "When it's about merit, it's always political. We're very motivated against the US, or the English." Mr Benchabane left disappointed his team's 1-0 loss to the US. But life has taught him that he can never know what lies ahead.

"We're proud to have Algeria in the World Cup," he said. "It's not a team for now, it's a team for the future." [e-mail]