As I write this, after midnight, Cairo sounds as if it's under siege.

Fireworks are exploding, police sirens are blaring, horns are honking, music is thumping and at least six processions of young men with drums have passed noisily in front of my building. Sporadic gunfire is keeping the whole block's residents in from their balconies.

Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Egyptians are flooding the streets draped in the red, white and black of the national flag and generally whooping it up. They have reason to celebrate: the Egyptian national soccer team beat archrival Algeria tonight in a World Cup qualifier. The two teams will play again Wednesday in Sudan.

"This is what a revolution could look like," an Egyptian friend observed, wistfully, of the fervor in the streets.

But this was all about soccer, or "football" as it's known here and everywhere else besides the United states. There's an ugly history behind this particular match, which you can read in this ESPN story and this one from AFP. Riots broke out after an infamous Egypt-Algeria match in 1989.

Security forces swarmed the street and traffic was severely restricted in several places long before the match today. Vendors walked through traffic jams, selling Egyptian flags. I heard that some fans spent the night before in line at the stadium, to guarantee their seats for the main event.

I haven't heard whether things turned violent in the streets tonight (the latest AP story notes that it was fairly peaceful), but things were looking ominous before the game began. Egyptians threw rocks at the bus carrying the visiting Algerian team from the airport, injuring three players. The Egyptian press then further mocked the team by writing that the whole story was made up by the Algerians.

One of the best parts of the feverish lead-up to the big match today was a "peace concert" in Cairo jointly headlined by two of the most popular North African singers, Cheb Khaled and Mohammad Mounir.

Here's a YouTube clip from the concert: