Arab World Cup commentators ignite fan passion with poetic flair

Even before Cristiano Ronaldo's close-range shot hit the back of the net, the commentator had begun shouting. "Allah!" exclaimed Amer al-Khudhiri, an Omani football announcer for BeIN Sports, as the Portugal star scored his first goal of the 2026 World Cup against Uzbekistan on Tuesday. He took a deep breath and began a soliloquy lasting over a minute and a half. "I knew you were coming for revenge. I knew you would answer everyone — the world, the World Cup, the doubters, those who have lost their memory," al-Khudhiri said. "Oh history, put Ronaldo here as Portugal's all-time top scorer, through all its history."

Arab commentators such as Tunisia's Issam Chaouali and Yemen's Hassan al-Aidarous are renowned for their passionate style, breaking from the clinical play-by-play typical of English-language media. Chaouali, who studied philology before becoming a broadcaster, is one of the Arab world's most famous commentators. Al-Aidarous, after Lionel Messi's record 17th World Cup goal, declared: "Let history open its arms. Let the world bear witness to this moment. If glory has a king, then you are the king of glory."

Hazar al-Kilani, 27, a PR manager based in Doha, said the language does more than heighten the drama — "it somehow stretches time. A two-second sequence becomes a full paragraph. The anticipation becomes the thing you are consuming, not only the goal." Cherly Abou Chabke, 25, a reporter for a Lebanese TV station, said: "Even if you don't understand football, hearing this beautiful commentary that sounds like a love letter to football, you're bound to get excited."

Arabic's rich vocabulary — said to have over 500 words for "lion" — enables commentators to improvise and create poetic expressions reminiscent of the pre-Islamic oral poetry tradition. Al-Kilani noted that Arabic has a classical science of eloquence (balagha) and a literary culture centered on the poet. "Commentary stepped into a seat that has already existed."

For many, the voices of Chaouali, Algeria's Hafid Derradji, and others evoke nostalgia and familiarity, recalling World Cup summers spent with family. "Chaouali's voice represents the sound of World Cup summers to many of us," al-Kilani said. "It belongs to the heat, to the whole family gathered in one room, to a match playing while that voice does what it has always done — lift an ordinary goal into something monumental."