When the 2022 World Cup hosting rights were awarded to Qatar on 2nd December 2010, the gulf nation’s football team sat 113th in the FIFA World Rankings, sandwiched in between Central African Republic and Thailand.
This tiny country of just under three million had won the right to host one of the biggest sporting events on the planet, but there was a risk of their own team being humiliated with a string of heavy defeats at the finals if action wasn’t taken to improve things.
Over the last 12 years, as stadiums have risen like dusty elephants from the sands around Doha, so too has the Qatar national football team been built up and reinforced. With just weeks to go until Qatar take on Ecuador in the opening match of the 2022 World Cup, the team are now ranked 50th in the rankings, the result of an action plan to beef up this one-time also-ran and create a team capable of upsetting the World Cup betting odds and competing on the biggest stage.
Vast amounts of money has been invested in the grassroots game in Qatar, to ensure that a strong pool of players is available for selection for the 2022 World Cup, and we have already seen some fruits of this process through Qatar’s various successes over the last few years.
In 2014, just four years after being awarded the World Cup hosting rights, Qatar lost just one match in the entire calendar year, a run which included winning the West Asia Football Federation Championship and the Gulf Cup. Already, the seeds were being planted for a team strong enough to compete eight years down the line.
The national team continued to play friendlies against an array of nations, including those ranked much higher to try and give the players a flavour of what they could expect at the World Cup, and against more lowly opposition where the team would have a chance to boost their ranking.
Then came the 2019 Asian Cup. Little was expected of Qatar with the likes of Iran, Japan and South Korea cast as tournament favourites, but the ‘Maroon’ produced an incredible run. In a group with Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and North Korea, Félix Sánchez’s team won all three games without conceding a single goal to advance as group winners.
From there, the run of clean sheets continued. Iraq, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates were all dispatched, with the defence holding firm throughout. That set up a final against Japan, who were the heavy favourites, but Qatar upset the apple cart once again, winning 3-1 and delivering the greatest triumph in the history of Qatari football.
The star of the show was striker Almoez Ali, who set an Asian Cup record by scoring nine goals in the tournament. Suddenly, it looked as though the years of toil building Qatar into a competitive national team had borne fruit, and Ali was the star of the show, the poster boy for the 2022 World Cup.
Qatar were invited to take part in the 2021 Copa América, and although they bowed out in the group stage, there is a sense that this team has gained enough experience to be able to cause a few surprises at the 2022 World Cup. It will be interesting to see whether the players can handle the pressure of such a big occasion, but the Qatar national team will be doing all in their power to bring pride to their nation on the world stage.
