Sports have a peculiar ability to transcend the boundaries of the field. In a matter of minutes, football can achieve what many speeches cannot: bring people together around a single feeling, and offer them a shared space of joy and belonging.

The widespread Arab interaction we witnessed with the Egyptian national team was not merely related to the outcome of a match, but rather a reflection of the Arab individual's need for moments that unite them in a world full of differences and challenges. Egypt, with its history, stature, and presence, does not enter any major arena as a mere passing number. And when it has a presence on the global stage, it finds millions of Arabs behind it who see in any Arab achievement an image of their shared ability to compete and excel.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing sports do is that they reorganize our relationship with joy. They remind us that success does not have to be personal for us to rejoice in it, and that the joy of peoples for one another is a value worth preserving.

A football match may not change political or economic reality, but it reveals an important truth: that the bonds between peoples are deeper than we think, and that what unites us is still greater than everything that tries to divide us.

We need to create more spaces of shared joy; not only in sports, but in science, culture, economy, and every field where an Arab individual can raise the ceiling of ambition. For true victory is not always in the result, but sometimes in that moment when we discover that we are still capable of rejoicing together.