More Arab Cup, and Omicron appears.

The Government announced four cases of Omicron yesterday but all from people entering the country and who had been undergoing quarantine.

That said I expect an announcement shortly as a large-scale screening was undertaken. A week ago I had received a message asking me, since I attended an Arab Cup match, to take part of a health survey & screening by going to a health centre on the 18th (also Qatar's National Day) and get a free Covid test, and they'll also check the swab for influenza and RSV. I thought that was a good thing to take part in so I went. I figure I'll get the results today or tomorrow. I'm sure I'm fine but the survey will allow the Government to get a better idea of the presence of Covid in people who attended the matches, and they'll likely scan the samples for Omicron as well. If the overall results are not good then restrictions and lockdowns will be happening.

As for the Arab Cup the tickets came in fast and furious (having friends working in places that get hospitality tickets help) and I wound up going to three more games. Firstly the Tunisia/Egypt semi-finals at Stadium 974.

It looks a bit weird, right? Like it would be a street art museum? Well, this stadium is temporary and made up partly of shipping containers. When Qatar bid for the World Cup one of the questions was what a country of 2.5m people would be doing with eight huge stadiums, and Qatar stated that some of them would be modular, to be dismantled, donated to developing countries, and reassembled. That's what Stadium 974 is (named 974 as it is Qatar's phone country code and is the number of shipping containers used). 

The atmosphere inside was great and I had seats in the corner, between the Tunisian fans and the Egyptian fans. It was pretty noisy.

But I couldn't stay for the whole match as my friends and I had tickets to the other match that evening, the Qatar/Algeria semi-final match at Al Thumama Stadium. The place would be full so we needed to give ourselves lots of time to get there.

It's a beautiful (and permanent) stadium. designed to look like a ghafiya, a white head covering men wear underneath the ghurtra.

Much like Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor we had to park across a busy highway from the stadium but they had a nice pedestrian walkway over the road.

This time we had really nice seats, right in the middle.

It was a good game, lots of crazy things. In the end the injury time wound up being something like 19-20 minutes (might be a new record?) because of all of the drama, but Qatar lost 2-1 due to a last-play penalty kick by Algeria. 

While I was watching the game I showed up for a second on TV when the cameras were doing shots of the crowd. I then received messages from friends with screenshots showing me (I cropped the photo so my friend's faces aren't shown). 

Another person at work also commented that they saw me on TV. I think because I was wearing a suit in a sea of white thobes I stood out on the screen.

Qatar is not a big country and people keep an eye out for who is in the crowd and quickly circulate stills on social media. Case in point, there were some ladies seated a row behind us and a few seats down but from the angle of the TV camera they looked like they were in the same row. One of my Qatari friends who was with us at the game told me he woke up the next morning to his wife holding a screenshot of the picture and asking, "Who are these ladies you're sitting next to?".  Lol.

Naturally the home crowd was disappointed as Qatar was not going to be playing in the final but it did mean that there were tickets to be had for the Third Place match between Qatar and Egypt on the 18th, so a bunch of us went to that. It was at Stadium 974 as well.

This time we had nosebleed seats.

The game was not particularly exciting, Qatar fielded many of their 'B-team' players and brought on the big guns in the second half. Even then the score was 0-0 and it went to penalties, with Qatar getting the win.

The final (Tunisia v Algeria) was that evening in Al Khor, but we watched it on TV at a majlis. It was an intense game, both teams really came to win and after much drama Algeria pulled through 2-0, with the second goal occurring on the last play to officially kill Tunisia's hopes of a comeback. 

So, a busy last few days. I didn't even go see any of the National Day events as I was busy watching soccer games.

2021 FIFA Arab Cup

This is one of my few posts not focused on COVID since the pandemic started. Qatar is hosting the Arab Cup (basically teams from the Middle East and North Africa) and a friend of mine managed to get a bunch of us tickets to the hottest match in town -- Qatar vs the UAE. 

I took a rapid test that morning as a precaution since I'll be sitting in close quarters with friends for a few hours, thankfully it was negative, so I was on my way to the city of Al Khor where the match would be that evening. A friend has a house there and hosted a BBQ for us before the game.

The game was at 10:00pm so we watched the 6pm game (Tunisia vs Oman) at the house then went to the stadium. The traffic was crazy, I mean you would expect that but I mean it was crazier than that. Leaving at 8pm to get to a stadium a few kilometers away there were times I wasn't sure we would make it in time for the kickoff. In the end we had to take a backroad to find a roundabout route to the large swath of desert serving as the parking lots. From there it was still a long walk, the parking lots were on the other side of the highway from the stadium. There is a huge pedestrian walkway over the highway for that purpose but it meant thousands of people walking to the walkway and then walking to the stadium from there.

We eventually got to the stadium, called Al Bayt (the house), one of the largest stadiums in Qatar. Built for the upcoming World Cup, it's a really cool design meant to look like an Arabic tent.

In terms of organization once we actually got to the parking lot things went pretty smoothly, there were plenty of staff and signs to direct you to where you needed to go. The biggest issue was getting to the parking lots, there were simply not enough roads/entrances to handle all of the traffic. When I was crossing the pedestrian bridge (at around 9:30) I could still see hundreds and hundreds of cars backed up into the highway trying to get into the parking lots. There was no way those people were going to make it in time for the kickoff. It'll be the main thing that Qatar will need to work on for next year's tournament, reconfiguring things so that more cars can enter the parking area in a short span of time. Getting through security, getting tickets checked, etc., that went fine.

Inside there were tens of thousands of people. It wasn't full when we arrived but that's because there were thousands more trying to find parking and getting in. It was eventually full. We had great seats on the 16th row near one of the goals.

Unluckily for us the UAE goal was on the other side of the field because the first half was a total rout.

Yep, 5-0 for Qatar after the half. UAE were making tons of mistakes, giveaways, and penalties, I think that alone counted for four of the goals. It was crazy -- and all happening at the other side of the field. Not that any of the Qatari fans cared. They were so happy.

And that's how the score ended, when the UAE goal moved to our side there were no goals. A couple of good chances, and I would say Qatar was the stronger side in that half as well, but no goals from either team. The fans were thrilled.

Getting home took a while as almost everyone was funneled to the pedestrian bridge in order to get back to the parking lots. It got crowded but there was some level of crowd control to try to keep it spaced out and not have everyone crushing each other. In the end it took about 45 minutes to reach the car and I was home close to 2:00am. 

All in all a great night, Qatar just needs to work on the parking access. The Arab Cup is a practice run for the World Cup next year (and there'll be 10x as many people showing up) so the Government is using the Arab Cup to figure out what is working and what isn't.

         

24th Arabian Gulf Cup

Qatar is hosting the Gulf Cup this year and, to everyone's surprise, the teams from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE participated. Originally there were not going to attend but suddenly they changed their mind. People here are seeing it as a sign that the frozen relations of the blockade are thawing -- maybe there'll be a breakthrough in the coming months. Tongues have been wagging with all sorts of rumours.

But for now there is football. Qatar got off to a weak start, losing 2-1 to Iraq, but finished off strong with wins in their other games to go through to the semis. The last game, against the UAE, was really important to Qataris are the UAE are considered the major rival, and with the problems at the AFC Championships earlier this year (hosted by the UAE) Qatar was hoping for a repeat of the 4-0 smack-down they gave the UAE at the earlier tournament.

The new Metro proved handy as the stadium was near a station. Heading home from work the Metro was packed with people, including lots of Qatari families heading to the game. When I got home I hopped into my car and headed to a friends' majlis to watch the game. It was worth the trip as Qatar won 4-2, to the happiness of the local crowd (including H.H. the Father Emir).

Tomorrow it's against Qatar's other rival, Saudi Arabia. But every Qatari I have spoken to is not so fussed about that game. It'll be great if Qatar wins but since they won against the UAE that's all that seems to matter. Much like the AFC Championships where no one was fussed if Qatar lost in the final (they won though!).

Best of luck to Qatar tomorrow. I'll be watching at a majlis.

Qatar Won the AFC Cup!

Yesterday was an incredible day as Qatar beat Japan 3-1 in the finals to win the Asian Championships. Tons of firsts for Qatar:

-- first time winning (heck, they had never made it out of the group stages before)
-- their star striker, Almoez Ali, had 9 goals in the tournament, a new record
-- Almoez of course won the MVP award
-- Qatar's goalie Saad won best goalkeeper, only 1 goal was scored against Qatar the entire tournament

All the Qataris were telling me that they weren't too fussed if Qatar lost to Japan, beating UAE to reach the finals was good enough. You wouldn't have known that based on the celebrations last night! Massive crowds poured out onto the streets to celebrate the historic win. I was at a friend's majlis watching the game so we didn't go down to the Corniche to get stuck in traffic, but my social media accounts exploded as everyone was posting comments and videos. I must have seen Qatar's goals at least 20 times now.

The timing couldn't have been better. When Qatar was awarded as host for the World Cup in 2022 one of the criticisms was that Qatar had never even qualified for the World Cup before because they never had a great team. No one is saying that now.

Some of the credit would have to be given to the vision of the Aspire Program. Started in 2004, it trains promising kids at Aspire's world-class facilities and provides them with free schooling as well. Some of the early graduates from the Aspire program are now on Qatar's team. It made a big difference.

But the football doesn't stop there. Qatar has been invited to play in the Copa America in June, where they'll play against South American teams. I hope they do well.

Everyone is now really excited to see how the team will do in 2022!

Asian Football Championships

The AFC tournament has been going on for the last month and the tournament has been closely watched by everyone here in Qatar. The tournament is being hosted by the UAE, one of the countries blockading Qatar, but as it was an international FIFA tournament it had to allow Qatar to play. So the Qatari team could go but because of the blockade the fans couldn't go, not an ideal situation. It doesn't help that in the UAE it is against he law to show sympathy for Qatar, punishable by fines and jail time.

Qatar has done really well this tournament. Some credit I think should go to the Aspire Program, allowing young players access to top trainers and facilities. Aspire opened over a decade ago and it looks like it is now starting to bear fruit as the team is really punching above it's weight, Qatar is usually ranked in the 80s-90s in the FIFA rankings but you wouldn't know it from this tournament.

The blockade has added a political dimension to the tournament and everyone was a bit nervous when Qatar had to play against blockade-leaders Saudi Arabia. It turned out fine, clearly players on both teams had been warned to not do anything antagonizing as the game was one of the 'cleanest' I had seen in a soccer match. Few fouls and a more respectful atmosphere than I expected. There were a few Qatari fans (some foreign residents from other countries that decided to support Qatar because they'd have no fans there) and a number of Omanis were showing up to support Qatar. Oman is the most neutral of the Gulf countries and many Omanis were showing up to Qatar games to give an overall message of "Arabs are all brothers and we should support each other".

Qatar made it through to the semi-finals where they would face . . . the hosts, UAE. Ouch, this was going to be tense and there was a lot riding on it. A year-and-a-half long blockade has really upped the rivalry between the countries.

The game was last night and everyone in Qatar was watching. I watched it at a majlis with about a dozen friends. Sadly, it was uglier than the Saudi game. Apparently someone (or multiple) people in the UAE Government purchased all of the tickets and gave them out for free but only to Emirati supporters, thus even the Omanis weren't going to be able to attend. In essence the stadium was an all-Emirates crowd. Lots of booing by the crowd, and when Qatar scored a second goal the crowd started throwing sandals and bottles (why was the stadium selling drinks in plastic bottles anyway?!). Qatar only had one corner kick that game and it was a challenge to do as people were throwing stuff at the kicker. Ugly scenes. The Qatari Team stayed cool and went on to a 4-0 victory, a pretty crushing defeat of the UAE. Qatari players did not stick around long after the match as the coach and others were hurrying them off the field, probably for safety.

In Qatar however the victory was huge. People were out in the streets, and a parade of cars descended on the Corniche. There was no denying it was a comprehensive win.

Qatar now plays the Finals on Friday vs Japan. I've spoken to many Qataris and no one is fussed if Qatar loses that game.

"We won our final", one Qatari proudly told me.

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-23 Tournament

Doha is hosting the AFC Under-23 tournament this year and so far I've been to all three of Qatar's games. A friend of mine gets tickets from his office so invites me along. To tell you the truth the games have been really good.

Qatar has played against China, Iran and Syria, winning all games by decent margins (the Iran game was maybe the closest)

Crowds to the Qatar games have been good, typically around 9-10 thousand. Not quite enough to fill Al Sadd Stadium. I should try to check out some of the non-Qatar games. I've caught bits of them here and there on TV and not as many people are going.

With the three wins Qatar has topped it's pool and moves on to the knockout stage against North Korea on the 22nd. (That I definitely want to see, I wonder if NK is going to fly in regimented fans again)

I don't think it's any coincidence that Qatar wins game if I'm in attendance, clearly I bring luck and good fortune. (Psst, Qatar Team, I bet if I could have VIP seats you'd probably do even better. Think about it!)

I recommend people try to go see some of the matches. The games I saw were pretty entertaining and now that it's the knockout stage it might be even better.

Football -- Qatar vs Turkey

I was going to post about my recent trip to Turkey but something else Turkish came up, a friendly match between Qatar and Turkey. Turkish friends of mine bought an extra ticket for me so we could all go, which was really nice of them.

The match was at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium (also known as Lekhwiya Stadium). Decent sized crowd, with plenty of Turks there to support the team. Football is a serious thing in Turkey and many fans showed up with Turkish flags or wearing jerseys from their Turkish League Teams.

It was a decent game with lots of attacking. Qatar nearly scored in the first 30 seconds and were the stronger team in the first half, eventually scoring a goal.

Halftime entertainment was a Turkish dance troupe.

Turkey got itself together for the second half and at one point the Qatari team had a minor collapse, allowing Turkey to score two quick goals (and nearly a third). Qatar regrouped and put on some great pressure, even had one near-miss that I was surprised they didn't score on, but in the end the score held 2-1 for Turkey. It was a good game.

I thought Turkey would be more dominant but apparently they've been a bit rough this year, barely scraping into qualifying for Euro 2016 with a series of losses and draws against lower-ranked teams.

Afterwards we waited around outside with about a hundred-or-so other fans for the Turkish team to head to the bus as my friends wanted pictures, especially of the Captain, Arda Turan, who is a superstar in Turkey. They got pictures of one of the players (I'm not sure who but it wasn't Arda) and they were also thrilled to meet the coach, who shook my friend's hand before boarding the bus. So all-in-all my friends were thrilled to have come out for the match.

Al Sadd and Xavi

So I went to my first Al Sadd football match the other day. I was a bit to finally get a chance to see Al Sadd's latest star player, Spanish-legend Xavi, play a match. He's the man in white in the center of the photo, about to shake hands with the other team.



Al Sadd were playing against Qatar Sports Club. Al Sadd is one of the more popular teams in Qatar so had around 2000 fans show up for the match. There were also a number of school kids in attendance, apparently there was a youth tournament going on at Aspire so hundreds were there to watch the game. Most were cheering for Al Sadd / Xavi as well.

I guess a player named Raul from Al Sadd was retiring because a huge banner was unfurled by the fans to thank him.

I won't go into all of the details of the match but I thought it would be a blow-out when Al-Sadd scored in the first three minutes! Qatar Sports Club settled down though and played better after that. They weren't able to stop a second goal but kept things lively with a late goal. It wasn't enough though and it ended 2-1 for Al Sadd.

Al Sadd Stadium is really great. The air conditioning keeps things comfortable and if you pay for QAR 20 seats they are really nice and padded - quite comfortable. My friend fell asleep a couple of times.

World Cup 2018 Qualifying – Qatar vs China

Last night was a World Cup qualifying match between Qatar and China, held at the (thankfully air-conditioned) Al Sadd Stadium. While the stadium wasn’t full was a decent crowd, maybe 6000+ supporting Qatar and around 600-700 Chinese supporters. Traffic was still an issue though, especially since the Boxing Championships are being held at the other stadium nearby (I’m going to that on Saturday). The Chinese supporters were all wearing identical T-shirts so I assume the Chinese Football Federation handed them out to fans.

In the first half Qatar played better than the Chinese, getting most of the possession and chances. Qatar managed to score one goal and it was only through sheer luck that they didn't manage to score a second one. 1-0 after halftime.

The halftime show was a troupe from China, representing a Dragon and Lions. They were pretty good. I liked how the Lions would suddenly stand on two legs.

In the second half the teams were more evenly matched, China upped its game so there was a lot of back-and-forth and chances on both sides. Things were getting tense, it got a little rougher and there was the odd questionable tackle on both sides.

In the end since they were evenly matched no one could score, Qatar’s goal held and Qatar won 1-0. An impressive effort against the higher-ranked Chinese team (China is ranked 81, Qatar 92) and a deserved win for Qatar.

Watching Another Qatar Stars League Match

Last night I went out to Gharafa Stadium to watch Al-Rayyan take on Mesaimeer.

When I got to the stadium there was a huge crowd outside. Apparently there was some Egyptian event going on in the parking lot. There was a stage with a singer and a lot of people carrying Egyptian flags. I have no idea what it was or why it was held in a parking lot but it looked like everyone was having a good time.

As for the game, it was reasonably well attended (around 3-4 thousand). Al-Rayyan is one of the more popular clubs in Qatar so have a lot of fans. I think Mesaimeer had maybe 100 fans (many of whom were on the far right of this picture, evenly spaced out in the seats for some reason).

No half-time show but the Al Kass network did have two field reporters doing half-time commentary for their broadcast.

The first half wasn’t very exciting but then things picked up in the second half with Al-Rayyan scoring two decent goals. Final score 2-0.

There was another match after that (Qatar Club vs Umm Slal) but I had to meet friends at a café so I left. I saw the game on TV at the café and it was a much more exciting game (Umm Slal was 2-0 down but managed to score two, with the equalizer happening in the final 30 seconds in injury time).

I’m thinking next week to go to Al Khor if there’s a match there.