For some Egyptian football fans, watching Mohamed Salah qualify with Egypt for two World Cups in 2018 and 2026 will never make up for the fact that the “golden generation” did not get their shot in 2006, 2010 or 2014.
“It is unfair to compare the two generations,” Ahmed Elshiekh, a former national team player who now covers the World Cup for Modern MTI TV, told Al Jazeera.
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“The golden generation did everything but get to the World Cup. They beat Italy [when they were World Cup champions]. The draw in qualification was just unkind to them.”
Salah is the captain and leader of the current generation. He won every trophy on offer while playing for Liverpool in a glittering nine-year career that saw him become the highest scoring foreigner in the history of the English Premier League.
Given his status, it is perhaps no surprise that Salah shouldered the blame for an AFCON drought that stretches back to 2010. His achievement in dragging Egypt to the 2018 World Cup in Russia is brushed aside due to the fact that Egypt was the first team to be eliminated. A half-fit Salah, who had dislocated his shoulder in the UEFA Champions League final, scored twice, but Egypt lost all three matches, including to Saudi Arabia.
The failures were compounded when Egypt lost the 2021 AFCON final to Senegal on penalty kicks. Thirteen months later, Egypt met Senegal in a World Cup playoff and once again lost on penalty kicks. In the first shootout, Salah was designated as the fifth taker but never got a chance to take his penalty. For the second shootout, perhaps realising his mistake, he went first and missed.
Salah might have been one of the best players in the Premier League, but Egypt fans were frustrated. To soothe their pain, they hung on to the memories of a team that was crowned African champions in 2006, 2008 and 2010 – successes that were spearheaded by the legendary midfielder Mohamed Aboutrika, who is equally famous for his “Sympathise with Gaza” T-shirt as he is for his immaculate first touch.
The despondence was so deep that fans had lost hope for their national team. AFCON 2023 was blighted by an injury to Salah, who elected to return to Liverpool for rehabilitation but promised to return should the team advance to the final. Egypt’s tournament ended shortly after that statement, courtesy of a penalty shootout defeat in the round of 16.
Working at that time as an analyst for Egyptian TV, now-Egypt manager Hossam Hassan said that if Salah had done that on his watch, he would “never pick him for the national team again”.
A couple of weeks later, Hassan was appointed to lead the national team after Rui Vitoria’s dismissal.
It was widely speculated that the only reason the Egyptian Football Association hired Hassan was because the currency crisis had prevented them from attracting a foreign manager.
“Hossam Hassan as a player has achieved everything you can imagine,” Elsheikh said, referencing the former striker’s record 69 goals for Egypt and three AFCON titles.
“But as a manager, we saw what he can produce, and the results were not great. … Also he brought problems and created crises.”
The crises Elsheikh referred to have been a hallmark of Hassan’s journeyman coaching career marked by brawls and altercations with fans.
But the appointment proved to be a stroke of unintended genius.
Instead of falling out with Salah, he and Hassan became joined at the hip. If there was anyone who could understand the pressure of Salah’s position, it was Hassan, who had lived it all before but with the added pressure of having played mostly in Egypt and having crossed the Cairo divide when he left Al Ahly to sign with bitter rivals Zamalek.
“Hassan does have a captain’s personality and is very energetic. He might not be the strongest tactically, but he does provide a solid defensive base” Elsheikh said.
Salah has enjoyed a rich vein of form under Hassan’s tutelage. Egypt qualified for the 2026 World Cup undefeated, winning eight out of their 10 matches. The team also reached the semifinals of the 2025 AFCON tournament – not that the achievement silenced any of the doubters.
Of course, it’s not all about Salah. Egypt have a raft of talented players, including Man City’s Omar Marmoush and Al Ahly’s Emam Ashour.
Their undefeated team is going into the round of 16 to face defending champions Argentina on Tuesday. Egypt have overcome a great deal of adversity to reach this stage of the tournament as well.
A second-half comeback against New Zealand in the group stage was needed to secure the nation’s first win at a World Cup. Salah exited the final group game against Iran with a hamstring injury but played all 120 minutes of the penalty shootout win over Australia in the last 32. The 34-year-old converted his kick with a Panenka against Socceroos goalkeeper Mat Ryan.
In the aftermath of that victory, Aboutrika, now an analyst for beIN Sports, did his best to pass the baton to the new generation.
Goalscorer Ashour had expressed his joy at being compared to Aboutrika, saying his ambition was to be “as half as good or even a quarter as good as him”.
Later on in the studio, Aboutrika responded by saying: “You are better than [me]. You’ve scored two goals in a World Cup,” and insisting that this was the biggest night in the history of Egyptian football.
Not everyone is so convinced.
“This Egypt team is better than any we have seen in years yet is still remarkably fragile,” opined Karim Zidan, a writer focused on the intersection of sports, power and politics.
Salah, meanwhile, was once again asked who was the greatest Egyptian player of all time and again deferred to Aboutrika, saying “there is absolutely no discussion.”
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The smooth and soothing voice that generations of Lakers fans grew so accustomed to when Lawrence Tanter was the longtime public address announcer has put down his microphone.
Tanter, known as the “Voice of the Lakers,” has retired from his game-day role, the team announced Tuesday, and he will become a special advisor for Lakers game presentation.
Tanter, 76, sat in his courtside seat as the public address announcer for 43 years at Lakers games, starting in 1982 when they played at the Forum and lasting until late March, when the team announced he would miss a game to attend to his health. Those with knowledge of the situation who are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter said he had a stroke.
“Lawrence Tanter has been an integral part of the Lakers gameday experience for more than four decades, setting the tone for countless memorable moments with his professionalism, energy and signature booming voice,” said Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ governor. “Since the 1980s, LT has narrated every chapter of Lakers basketball, connecting generations of fans, players, coaches and staff while becoming a trusted and unforgettable part of the Lakers’ experience. I am incredibly grateful for everything he has given to this franchise.”
From the days of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, to the Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal era and the current LeBron James and Luka Doncic days, Tanter was the voice that resonated.
South Korean boy band BTS, U.S. pop culture icon Madonna and Latin music superstar Shakira will be performing at halftime during the World Cup final July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., FIFA announced Thursday morning.
The performance will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is looking to raise $100 million to assist children in accessing education and soccer.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote on Instagram that the show “will be a truly special moment, bringing together music, football and a shared commitment to improving the lives of children around the world.”
The show is being curated by Coldplay leader Chris Martin and, if this event announcement video is to be believed, a bunch of Muppets.
“It’s a chance to show how amazing all different kinds of humans are,” Martin explains to Elmo in the video.
The three acts will bring a variety of cultures, musical styles and generations of fans to the Super Bowl-style concert, which will be the first of its kind for a World Cup final.
Madonna headlined the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show in 2012, and Shakira teamed with Jennifer Lopez to co-headline the Super Bowl LIV halftime show in 2020. Also, Coldplay headlined the Super Bowl 50 halftime show in 2016.
No duration time has been announced for the World Cup show, although soccer halftimes are not supposed to last more than 15 minutes. Bad Bunny’s halftime performance at Super Bowl LX in February lasted 13 minutes.
Among the three of them, Madonna, Shakira and BTS have compiled 20 No. 1 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, 10 Grammys and 37 MTV Video Music Awards. Shakira is scheduled to release “Dai Dai” with Nigerian singer Burna Boy as the official song of the 2026 World Cup this month.
JACKSON, Miss. — At 16, Edward Blackmon Jr. was arrested during a demonstration for voting rights in his Mississippi hometown. He was loaded with schoolmates into a truck once used to haul chickens and left in the summer heat before spending three nights in an overcrowded jail cell without a bed.
It was a moment that set him on a path to become a civil rights lawyer and one of the first Black lawmakers elected in the state since Reconstruction.
Blackmon was part of a generation of Black Americans across the South who fought in courtrooms and in the streets to dismantle barriers to voting and achieve political representation in a region scarred by the legacy of slavery and its aftermath.
One of the crown jewels of that struggle, the Voting Rights Act, was hollowed out by a Supreme Court ruling last week. The court’s conservative majority said states should not rely on racial demographics when drawing congressional districts, a ruling that opened the door to transforming how political power is distributed and making it harder for minorities to get elected.
The majority opinion described racism as a problem of the past. Others saw the decision as another example of its resurgence — “a defibrillator to the heart of Jim Crow,” as one Louisiana politician put it.
Blackmon’s son, Bradford, a 37-year-old state senator in Mississippi, said how the political lines are drawn “shapes who has a real chance before anyone ever votes.”
“It’s just sad that we made progress and then they are always trying to roll it back when it shows that minorities are making more progress than I would guess that those in charge think that they’re allowed to make,” he said.
The elder Blackmon, now 78, said he was resigned to the reality that the fight of his youth is not over.
“It’s just another cycle — an ongoing struggle without a foreseeable ending,” he said.
The case, involving a challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map, clarified how the Voting Rights Act can be used to contest district lines that may weaken the voting power of Black residents.
For many Black Americans, the decision was a death knell for a cherished pillar of the Civil Rights Movement. Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black voters in the Deep South had no guarantee of equal access to the ballot. Within a year of its passage, more than 250,000 Black Americans had gained the right to vote. By 2024, nearly 22 million Black voters were registered nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The United States is now witnessing the unraveling of nearly a century of organizing, civil disobedience and personal sacrifice by ordinary people who helped build Black political power to heights unseen since Reconstruction. Veterans of the voting rights movement — people who confronted police violence alongside John Lewis on the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala., or rallied with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — are seeing those hard-won victories stripped away from their descendants.
“I’m the first generation of Americans born with equal rights,” said Jonathan Jackson, a Democratic congressman from Illinois who is the 60-year-old son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the late civil rights leader. He said the idea that his children could grow up with fewer protections was “surreal and devastating.”
For Charles Mauldin, who was beaten by law enforcement as a teenager on Bloody Sunday, the ruling reflects a skirmish that was never as settled as some hoped.
“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” said Mauldin, 78, of Birmingham, Ala. “They’ve been chipping away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act for the last 60 years.”
In Louisiana, younger Black politicians say the high court’s ruling could reshape not just who wins elections, but whether candidates can compete at all, particularly in down-ballot races that often serve as steppingstones to higher office.
Davante Lewis, a 34-year-old Democrat who serves on the state’s utility regulatory board, said he expects districts could be redrawn in ways that make it harder for candidates like him to win.
“They can target my communities … to ensure that I can’t get to an elected office,” said Lewis, one of several plaintiffs in the Louisiana gerrymandering case that went to the Supreme Court.
Jamie Davis, a Black farmer in northeast Louisiana and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, said the decision risks discouraging voters already skeptical that their voices matter.
“I want to be optimistic, but how can you be optimistic when voter turnout in the past election cycles has been really low?” Davis said.
Tennessee is among the states bracing for new redistricting efforts. State Rep. Justin Pearson, who represents Memphis and is running for Congress, said people who struggled to pass the Voting Rights Act are “shocked and devastated that they’re having to relitigate the same fights that they fought 60 years ago.”
But he also predicted that efforts to reduce Black representation could “reinvigorate a civil rights movement in the South that demands equal representation, that demands fairness, that demands justice and equality.”
Supporters of the Supreme Court ruling said it reinforces a race-neutral approach to redistricting, and they say political lines should not be drawn primarily based on race.
Democratic Mississippi state Rep. Bryant Clark said that view ignores how race and party align in the state. In Mississippi, where most Black voters are Democrats and most white voters are Republicans, he said the two are often indistinguishable.
“It’s just a roundabout way to basically legalize racially discriminatory redistricting in the state,” Clark said.
In 1967, his father, Robert Clark Jr., became the first Black lawmaker elected to the Mississippi Legislature since Reconstruction.
With Black residents making up about 38% of Mississippi’s population, Edward Blackmon Jr. said the current maps allow Black voters to elect candidates in some districts while keeping Republican majorities intact across much of the state.
He said lawmakers have little incentive to change that balance because moving Black voters into more districts would make those seats less reliably conservative and force candidates to compete for a broader electorate.
“Where do you think the population goes? They don’t just disappear,” Blackmon said. “What incumbent wants that type of district right now?”
Blackmon was raised in Canton, “when Jim Crow was in full bloom.”
Black children attended separate schools, and during cotton-picking season, classes let out early as rickety trucks with wooden sides arrived to take students to the fields, where they spent hours working.
At home, he watched those inequalities play out in quieter ways.
His father, a World War II veteran who left the sharecropping farm where Blackmon’s grandfather had worked, struggled to find steady work in Mississippi after returning from military service and becoming involved in civil rights organizing. He eventually left for New York to make a living — part of a generation of Black veterans who faced barriers to jobs and opportunities their white counterparts received.
Blackmon remembers sitting nearby as his father and other community leaders gathered on the porch, talking late into the night about forming a local NAACP chapter.
“It was embedded in my memory and experience that it was worth the struggle,” he said.
When the Voting Rights Act passed, it did not immediately change those realities. In places like Canton, federal officials set up registration tables on downtown streets so Black residents could sign up to vote without facing harassment or intimidation from local authorities.
In the years that followed, Blackmon and other lawyers used the law to challenge at-large election systems that prevented Black communities from electing candidates of their choice. Cities and counties were forced to redraw maps into single-member districts.
When those districts still diluted Black voting strength, activists returned to court.
“Without the Voting Rights Act, Mississippi would look so much different than it looks now,” Blackmon said.
Willingham, Brook, Bates and Amy write for the Associated Press and reported from Boston, New Orleans, Jackson and Atlanta, respectively. AP writers Kristin Hall and Travis Loller in Nashville and Safiyah Riddle and Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Ala., contributed to this report.