Khaberni - Tomorrow, when the stands of "Al Thumama" fill with voices and banners, we will not be at a football match! We will be at an anthropological ritual called on by the Arab memory whenever geography is disturbed and politics are exhausted. The relationship between Jordan and Iraq is not one of borders, but a mixture of blood, shared pain, and a dream that formed in the shadows and then emerged in the light. A relationship crowded with unforgettable history, regardless of how much the screens try to drown it with noise!
On social media, there is bullying, ridicule, and disdain. A wave that seems noisy but is fundamentally as fragile as foam and as vapid as floodwater! Ridicule, in collective psychology, is disguised fear. Sarcasm is an unannounced acknowledgment of the other's strength. The electronic campaign against the Jordanian team is not a sign of weakness, but a testament to its status: the model is only attacked when it causes awe.
Jordan, in football as in politics, resembles a mountain that tests the wind without bending. Its strength lies not in its voice but in its legacy. And this is what some do not understand: Jordanian stability is not a fluke but the fruit of a decades-old Hashemite ethical system, which knows that true victory is not built on hatred, but on patience, dignity, and a value instilled by the Hashemites in the public conscience: to be strong means refusing to be a copy of your enemies!
History itself is now smiling with bitter wisdom!
Because the two countries that argue in the comments are the same two countries whose late King Hussein bin Talal testified that they share the same depth.
At the 1990 Baghdad Summit, where politics mixed with fire, Jordan did not hesitate to pay the price for its stance. That moment was an embodiment of the uncompromising Hashemite principle: brotherhood is a commitment, not an account. An alliance of fate, not protocol.
And the same principle has remained the mirror of the relationship. When Iraq stumbled after 2003 and its wound deepened, Amman did not close its doors. It opened its heart. It provided not only a refuge but a social fabric where the Iraqi became part of the home, not a guest. Families blended, memories intertwined, and the Iraqi in Jordan became a relative, not a stranger.
This was the continuation of that ethical capital that not even the tragedy of "Al-Rehab," with all its wounds, could extinguish. The Hashemites chose at that time to rise above memory, not to drown in it. They chose to turn pain into wisdom, not into resentment.
Therefore, when the Arab world boils with its setbacks, Iraq often stands in Arab forums as a silent support for the quiet Jordanian narrative, as if it is repaying a mutual debt of deep loyalty.
This is not politics.
This is the ethics of memory.
Against this epic backdrop comes tomorrow's match.
The Jordanian team, which reached the finals of Asia 2023, did not get there by chance, or coincidence, or wealth. It arrived because it represents the philosophy of a state that masters cumulative building. A team that knows it carries on its shoulders a history of values, and stands on the field as if to whisper to the world:
"This is how nations are built: with will, not money. With patience, not haste. With meaning, not noise."
Tomorrow, the match will not be just a match.
It will be a reconciliation with memory.
Every pass will be a small bridge over gaps of misunderstanding.
Every goal will be a reminder that life, no matter how tough, remains stronger than death.
Every applause will be an acknowledgment that peoples who have shared pain together can also share joy together.
The players will chase the ball.
But the real match will take place in the hearts of the millions watching.
It will be a confrontation between two tendencies:
– The tendency to easily forget,
– And the painful—but healing—tendency to remember.
Between our desire to be tribal fanatics and our need to be one nation.
And in the end, when the match is over, and the stadium lights go out, one question will remain hanging above all this noise:
Did we understand the lesson?
Did we realize that this match was just a pretext to remember that we are, despite everything, brothers in fate, not championship rivals?
Did we comprehend that neighborhood is not about land proximity, but about spiritual connection? And that any victory that sweeps away respect is a disguised defeat?
The ball will stop rolling.
But the lesson must not stop.
Because the relationship between Jordan and Iraq is not an event, but a mirror for all Arabs: a complex, painful relationship, but with inexhaustible renewal potential.
Let us cheer tomorrow with enthusiastic hearts, yes.
But let's make the match an opportunity to be bigger than our emotions. To emerge from it, players, audience, and nations more able to see each other as we have always seen—not as opponents, but as authentic witnesses to one history and one trench where Saadoun Jaber once sang:
"Amman and Baghdad stood in the same trench
And Jordan has spoken its word... people and leader."
This is the victory that the net doesn't record.
This is the crowning that only nations that know who they are can achieve.
And if the world seeks meaning tomorrow, it will find it in one place:
In ethics when it triumphs, and in peoples when they remember, and in matches that are played outside the field more than on the grass!
