It is a team that will essentially lose all their games. Qatar has no tradition of football. Even in winter it is warm to play there. Among the 3 million who live in Qatar, only 380,000 were born there. They have fewer than 7,500 registered footballers, according to John McManus, author of the book Inside Qatar. That’s just enough to fill a quarter of the Ullevaal stadium. When Qatar won the World Cup in 2010, they were number 113 in the FIFA rankings. In the qualifiers for the World Cup that year, they finished behind Bahrain and lost 4–0 against Uzbekistan. Five years later, Brazilian soccer legend Zico said Qatar “doesn’t have soccer.” – They don’t even have a thousand spectators in the stands. “There are matches where even the players’ families don’t show up,” Zico said, according to NBC. Now Qatar will play their first World Cup, where they are qualified because they are the hosts. In the course of 21 World Cups, only one home team has made it out of the group, and that was South Africa in 2010. To avoid humiliation, Qatar has done everything to build a good team, often using unorthodox methods. – This is not a normal national team, says McManus to news. If we want to understand why, we have to go back in time 17 years. Wanted to “sign” trio from Brazil In 2005, Pelé and Diego Maradona stand on a stage in Doha to open the Aspire Academy. There are seven outdoor courts as well as the Aspire Dome, one of the world’s largest indoor arenas for sports. – It is a huge air-conditioned hall, very futuristic. As soon as you walk in, the temperature drops to 21 degrees, says McManus. ACCOMPANIED: Security personnel accompany a training session at the Aspire Academy in Doha. Photo: FADI AL-ASSAAD / Reuters The academy is surrounded by everything from schools to hotels, a medical center and a laboratory. According to Reuters, the price should be 1.3 billion dollars. This is where Qatar’s national team players will be bred. At this time, Qatar’s best result is a quarter-final from the Asian Championship in 2000. They are more famous for something else: in 2004 they tried to “sign” the Brazilians Aílton, Dedé and Leandro. According to The Times, they are giving $1.2 million to Aílton, who says money is “not the deciding factor.” But FIFA is putting its foot down. They make new rules that say that a player who changes national team must have a parent or grandparent who was born there. In 2007, they add that the player must have lived in the country for at least five years. Qatar will not get the trio from Brazil. Now Aspire will rather cultivate local heroes. WANTED BY QATAR: Aílton scored over 100 goals in the German Bundesliga for Werder Bremen and Schalke 04. Here he scored for the latter club in the derby against Borussia Dortmund. Photo: MICHAEL SOHN / AP In 2007, Aspire goes out into the world. “Football Dreams” starts, a project where a horde of scouts will bring the greatest talents home to Doha. Three years later, ESPN is in Guatemala to talk to Josep Colomer, a scout Aspire has lured from Spanish giants Barcelona. Colomer says he takes 160 flights a year in search of talent. – I sleep in a new village every day, says Colomer. Within this, Aspire has 15 programs in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Six of them are in countries that have members in FIFA’s executive committee, the partially corrupt group that will give the World Cup to Qatar. By 2014, Aspire claims to have scouted 3.5 million players from 17 countries. Every year they have invited 50 of them to auditions, of which between 18 and 20 have received scholarships. But these talents are from abroad. What then is the point of Football Dreams for Qatar’s national team? Aspire claims they only want to support poor countries, as well as help the talents achieve their dreams. Critics say Aspire is built to keep talent in Qatar for five years so they can play for the national team. They need citizenship, but the Emir of Qatar can fix that. Aspire says it is “up to the players” whether they want to represent Qatar. McManus has his theory. – Personally, from what I’ve seen, I think it was an attempt to raise the level internally in the academy, as opposed to getting foreign players to play for Qatar. Before Football Dreams is shut down, they fly in youth teams from Europe, including Real Madrid’s U14 team, according to McManus. – How do you get better? I’ve talked to coaches there and they say the answer is to play against the best. And you can’t do that in the Gulf. He adds that he is not 100% sure of Aspire’s motives. – As with so many things in Qatar, it is difficult to find clear answers. Talents on exchange In June 2012, something strange happened to the Belgian club KAS Eupen. The team from the German-speaking part of the country is at level two, but is about to go bankrupt. Soon they will have a new owner: the Aspire Zone Foundation. The team gets Aspire Academy as kit sponsor. But why should an academy in Qatar buy a club in Belgium? BELGIUM: The Aspire Academy is highly visible at the Belgian club KAS Eupen. Here, assistant coach Matyas Czuzci (left) talks to head coach Bernd Storck during a training session this summer. Photo: JOHN THYS / AFP – The most important reason was to give players from Aspire the opportunity to play in Europe, says Mohamed El Gharbawy, who runs the “Football Qatar” Twitter account. In Belgium, there are no rules on how many non-EU players a team can sign. In the next decade, 35 players from Aspire will go to Eupen, according to the website Transfermarkt. In 2015, Aspire buys a new club called Cultural y Deportiva Leonesa. It is at level two in Spain. This is in addition to agreements Aspire has made with European clubs for the exchange of players, among them Sevilla, Monaco and Real Madrid. The following year, Eupen moves up to the top level. The experiment seems to be working. – Forget fun with friends Now it has become attractive to play football in Qatar. Ahmed Alaaeldin is the son of a civil engineer from Egypt who moved to Qatar in 2003. In another world, Ahmed would earn more money with a regular job, but not in Qatar. – The status has now changed. They give footballers everything, says the father to The Guardian newspaper. Aspire is now scrutinizing every school in Qatar in search of talent, the newspaper writes. They scout the steps all the way down to the age of six. The Guardian talks to the captain of Qatar’s U23 team, Musaab Khidir, who only thinks about the World Cup. He has received advice from his father: “Eat healthy, sleep a lot, and forget about girls and fun with friends”. – This is a big chance for me. I can hardly believe that I can play in the World Cup, if it is only two or three minutes. I will hardly be able to sleep. Let’s hope we will be ready, says Khidir. Qatar does not seem ready. In the Asia Championship in January 2015, they have lost all three of their matches. The star is no local hero, but rather Sebastián Soria, a 32-year-old forward born in Uruguay. In 2016, rumors spread that Qatar will reduce the number of players born abroad in favor of talent from its home country. The team’s Uruguayan coach, Jorge Fossati, doesn’t like that. – Then it is better if Qatar gets another coach, he says to Doha Stadium Plus. So Qatar is doing just that. And it will pay off. Looking towards Spain The new coach is Félix Sánchez. He worked for a long time for Barcelona, where he was a coach at La Masia, the famous academy where names like Lionel Messi, Xavi, Pep Guardiola and Andrés Iniesta learned their football. In 2006 he was employed by Aspire. He was so good that he took over the U19 team to Qatar in 2013. There he trained a group who knew each other from the academy. They won the Asian Championship for U19 teams in 2014. In 2017, Sánchez is promoted to coach of the A team. NATIONAL TEAM MANAGER: Félix Sánchez has his past from Barcelona. Photo: SUHAIB SALEM / Reuters By then, Qatar has acquired more expertise from Barcelona. In 2015, Xavi has come to play for Al-Sadd. When he shows up, a group of migrant workers are paid to take him in. Xavi becomes an ambassador for Qatar, and angers his home country by praising the dictatorship. – The political system works better in Qatar than in Spain, says Xavi according to Diario AS. WAS IN QATAR: Barcelona legend Xavi had his first years as a coach at Al-Sadd. Photo: – / AFP In 2019, Xavi becomes coach of Al-Sadd and makes them the country’s best team. They use a Spanish style where they have the ball a lot. Many of Qatar’s stars now play this way both in club and national teams. – The Spanish influence has been enormous, says El Gharbawy. – Most of the players are not physically strong. They have to play technical football with a lot of short passes, and that’s why they play like that. Qatar fails to reach the World Cup in 2018. But the following year it explodes. Guests everywhere In 2019, Qatar will travel to the Asian Championship in the United Arab Emirates. This is happening during the biggest political crisis in the Gulf in decades: Qatar has been isolated by an economic and political blockade directed by its neighbors Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Qatar’s fans are banned from the tournament. But the team reaches the semi-finals, where they face the Emirates. In front of 38,000 spectators, Qatar’s national anthem is played. When Qatar scores, they are bombarded with bottles and sandals. SANDALS ON THE COURT: Qatar’s players had a number of things thrown at them after they scored against the United Arab Emirates. Photo: Suhaib Salem / Reuters But Qatar wins 4–0. In the final, they beat Japan 3–1 and become Asian champions. – It was a huge surprise for everyone, says El Gharbawy. Next, Qatar looks towards the World Cup. Although they belong to Asia, they are “invited” to international tournaments around the world. In 2019, they take part in the South American championship and end up last in the group. In 2021, they get a place in the Gold Cup, which will only be for teams in North and Central America. They have a strategic agreement with the region’s football association, and it hardly hurts that the state airline, Qatar Airways, sponsors the tournament. Qatar reach the semi-finals. They lose 1–0 against the USA, but they have played a good tournament. Qatar will then be invited as a guest to the WC qualifiers in Europe. GOLD CUP: Abdelaziz Hatim in action during Qatar’s match against Honduras in the Gold Cup. Photo: Justin Rex / AP The players Qatar will later take to the World Cup will all stay at domestic clubs. Of the 26, 10 were born abroad, in countries such as Portugal, Sudan and Bahrain. This should not be unusual in the World Cup: Wales has the same number, and Morocco has 14. Many of the 10 have close ties to Qatar. – Most of them have been developed by the Aspire Academy. Most were also born in Qatar, or came here when they were very young, says El Gharbawy. But the prime example of Qatar’s plan is winger Akram Afif. He has visited both Aspire, Eupen on loan and Al-Sadd under Xavi. He helped win the Asian Championship with the U19 team in 2014 and then with the A team in 2019. Now he is Qatar’s big star. Run like a club In the months before the World Cup, Qatar has an unusual charge. Journalist Owen Slot writes in The Times that Qatar is a national team that “behaves like a club”. Is he right? – Yes, absolutely, says McManus, and adds: – They have such a special method of developing players. Although these players had club teams when they were young, the national Aspire academy overshadows everything else in a way that doesn’t happen in Western Europe. OFFENSIVE STAR: Akram Afif has scored 26 goals in 89 international matches for Qatar. Photo: Ibrahem Alomari / Reuters McManus says that most nations have received their players from their clubs one week before the start of the World Cup. In Qatar, where the royal family rules everything, the league finished in September, giving the players time to prepare. – You won’t find any other leagues that do that, says McManus. As of July, Qatar has played 11 games. During the same period, Ecuador, their first opponent in the World Cup, have played three matches. Several of Qatar’s players have known each other since they met at the academy. This is unusual, says McManus. – In England, there is talk about whether Gareth Southgate will get the players to act as a team, since they have only been together for one week, he says, and adds: – Qatar has been together for 10 years. If you include the opening of Aspire, you can say that Qatar has been building towards this for 17 years. On Sunday, they get 90 minutes to show the world what they can do. Sources: Aspire, BBC, Diario AS, ESPN, FIFA, Forbes, Goal, Inside Qatar (by John McManus), NBC, Qatar Tribune, Reuters, The Age of Football (by David Goldblatt), The Analyst, The Guardian, The Mirror , The Times.
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The national club team – Sport Langlesing
