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Egypt’s Soccer Coach Won’t Coach Israel

Just in case you were wondering

by
Marc Tracy
February 09, 2010

“It would be more honorable to me and my family if I die of hunger rather than consider coaching the Israeli team,” said Hassan Shehata, who coach’s Egypt’s national squad, explaining that he wouldn’t coach Israel “even if it was the only team that requests my services.” (Um, quick question: did it request his services?) “All my life I’ve heard that Israel kills Arabs, fires missiles, and destroys Arab villages,” he added, “but this is the first time in my life that I’ve heard that in Israel they play soccer.” (They do, in fact, play soccer in Israel.)

So that’s not a very nice thing to say! But let’s be magnanimous and wish Shehata’s team—which is ranked an impressive tenth in the world—the best of luck in this summer’s World Cup. Wait—what’s that? Egypt got beat out by Algeria and failed to qualify? Too bad. Better luck next year. Sorry, four years.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.