Despite losing last weekend's match to the underfed-looking Slovenians, Algeria's Desert Foxes are succeeding in nurturing inter-Maghrebi unity, which is more like drawing water from stone.

The alliance first emerged in the qualifying finals, when the five countries of the Maghreb pledged support for Algeria in a hotheaded play-off against Egypt, one that triggered riots and a diplomatic row last November. The Algerian national team--the only Arabs competing in the 2010 World Cup--is now buoyed up by feverish hope across the Maghreb, an oft-overlooked region whose nations are struggling to unify, despite deep economic and political divisions.

Young and old men gathered Sunday in a Casablanca café to watch the match, groaning and gritting their teeth between puffs of sweet shisha smoke as the tide turned against Algeria in the second half of the match. An Al Jazeera camera alighted on an unusual scene in the South African stands--the flags of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria flying together. A similar image is circulating among Magrebi chat sites and Facebook profiles.

In a time of tightening regional blocs, however, the Maghreb has been woefully slow to coalesce. Rivalries and infighting, especially between Morocco and Algeria, are proving serious obstacles to unified regional development. The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), product of a cooperation treaty signed by Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, lays claim to no notable achievement since its launch more than two decades ago. Trade between North African countries remains just 1.3 percent of their foreign exchange, the lowest for any region in the world.

Morocco hosted an AMU forum last month for coordinating financial regulation and supervision in the five countries of the Maghreb, illustrating some of the almost comical setbacks to inter-Maghreb unity, economic and otherwise. The bloviating of the Libyan delegation alienated many in attendance. On the other hand, at least they showed up, unlike the Algerian Central Bank delegation, whose absence--allegedly due to a clerical screw-up--was conspicuous.

Regional economies are either statist (Algeria, Libya) or relatively liberalized (Morocco, Tunisia), throwing up one major obstacle to economic integration, explains Marina Ottaway, Director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Algeria's economy is still dominated by the statist sector. In the case of Morocco and Tunisia, you have much more open markets. It's difficult to achieve economic integration when you have divergent economic systems."

But without doubt, the biggest obstacle to regional integration is the dispute over the Western Sahara, a phosphate-rich territory about the size of Colorado annexed by Morocco in the late 1970s. Algeria--and the Algerian people--backs the pro-Independence Polisario movement, while Morocco--and Moroccans--consider advocating Independence a direct threat to their own "intégrité territoriale". 

"Unless the issue of the Western Sahara is resolved," says Ms. Ottaway, "there is not going to be any cooperation between Algeria and Morocco."

And yet, despite the polarizing impact of this enduring dispute, the people of Algeria and Morocco have much in common. Algeria and Morocco are nearly identical in terms of religion, ethnic composition (99% Arab-Berber, according to the CIA factbook), and a Berber and French-heavy Arabic dialect mostly incomprehensible to the rest of the Arab world.

Indeed, the Maghreb has much to gain from enhanced cooperation in the coming years. Europe wants to harvest 15 percent of its energy needs from solar panels and wind farms in the Saharan desert by 2050. Major multinationals like Siemens and Deutsche Bank have come out in support of a 400 billion EUR budget to achieve this goal, outlined in the bold Desertec Industrial Initiative. Teaming up on Saharan alternative energy would greatly strengthen the Maghreb's negotiating position ahead of an upcoming surge in European investment in North Africa.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda-linked extremism and drug trafficking are picking up steam in swaths of desert to the south, posing what experts deem is a growing threat to national security in Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, as well as foreign interests in the region and abroad. Warnings that the region's governments must join forces to combat this growing threat seem to have fallen on deaf ears, as Morocco was plainly left out of neighbors' plans to open a Joint Military Staff Committee of Mauritania, Algeria, Niger and Mali in the southern Algerian outpost Tamanrasset.

The seeming intractability of problems in the region notwithstanding, the onset of the World Cup has provided a chance for some optimism--and one that seems to resonate on the street. "The moment they recognize a Moroccan accent, the people of Algiers tell you ‘You are in your own country!'...In the streets of Algiers, you are not Moroccan-you're Maghrebi," wrote Algiers-based Moroccan journalist Faical Faquihi in the Moroccan daily Au Fait. "There is a world of difference between the streets and the governments," he added.

Shouts of "One, two, three, Viva l'Algerie!" will ring out during Algeria's next games (particularly in next week's match against the U.S), from diverse and far-flung corners of the Maghreb. This outpouring of support should serve as a reminder that a significant platform for unity-building already exists in the Maghreb--tensions and spats are taking place more among governments than among peoples--at least for now.

Hannah Armstrong is a freelance foreign correspondent in Casablanca, Morocco