Doha is a very unusual place, a city of less than a million people in the Middle East yet I sometimes cannot get over the high-quality sporting events that occur here. I have already mentioned tennis and how I've seen both the top men's and women's players here. There was also the Asian Games where the top athletes from all over Asia competed. There was also the Motor GP event last year I went to.
So this Wednesday there was an event at the local soccer stadium, a 15-minute walk away. The captain of the local soccer club, Al-Sadd, was retiring so in his honour they arranged for a friendly match with...
... AC Milan !!
Yep, AC Milan was playing 15 minute walk away from my apartment. No, not their junior team, the star team. Caca, Ronalhino, Beckham, they were all there. Bizarre, huh? Who would have thought you could see one of the top soccer teams in the world in Doha.
Now due to injury Caca and Ronalhino did not play but they were still there and gave a small award to the retiring captain at half time. Beckham and the others did play. Because it was a friendly I can't say that the game was very exciting, for the most part AC Milan took it easy and did not make many exciting plays. I guess they did not want to embarrass the Qatari team too much which was unfortunate because the crowd would have loved to have seen a lot of world-class play. They did score two great goals but generally just passed the ball around taking care not to wear themselves out too much. Al-Sadd of course were playing their hearts out and they did score a goal (and I think it was legit, I don't think AC Milan were being nice and letting them have a goal) but the score ended 2-1 for AC Milan.
Anyway it was neat to have been able to see AC Milan, it's unlikely that I will ever get the chance to see them play again.
p.s.: anyone who watched the game find it odd that Al-Sadd only did short corner-kicks? You would think if ever there was a chance of scoring against a much better team it would be on firing a corner straight into the crowd in front of the goal. At first I thought that Al-Sadd were deliberately doing it, to prevent heads knocking together going for the corner kick and potentially injuring an AC Milan player, but AC Milan had no issue with firing their corner kicks into the group. Weird.
3 comments:
Hi Glen, My notebook was down but is back home from the repair shop and working great again. It was just a dust issue which I will blame on the sand/dust storm I experienced in Doha. (smile) Maybe I need to air blast it more then once a year.
"I was so very pleased to read that all was well with your biopsy, you were wise to have it checked because your work keeps you in those warm sunny countries."
I was pleased that we had the chance to meet you. You look so different from your picture. No hiding those blue eyes. My son has blue eyes which I also comment on.(smile)
My daughter was very pleased and impressed with the web sites you gave her and found a wealth of information from them.
And yes next time I will be sure to visit the Doha Museum.
Those 5 weeks just flew by. I met some wonderful & interesting people during my visit to Doha, you of course being one of them.
Would have been nice to have seen David Beckham play. Hopefully Lori got to a game.
As always I will be following your blogs to see how you are doing and reading all the information you share with us.
Take Care.
Hey man, just going through the entire blog.
2things in this post... Is Kaka... And for pete's sake... FOOTBALL, not soccer.
Cheers
It's "Kaka"? Whoops, shows what I know about soccer. And yes, as I'm a Canadian, it's soccer, "football" is a completely different sport in the US and Canada.
Post a Comment