The World Cup Experience
There was a classic Clint Eastwood western called “Two Mules for Sister Sara” where he partners with a prostitute masquerading as a nun. Well, for me, the preparations for the Qatar World Cup could be titled “Seven Mules for Sister FIFA”, where I got to overpay for seven nights lodging and seven matches to support FIFA; which could also be compared to a prostitute masquerading as a nun. Besides the high prices for accommodations, the ticketing process was a convoluted mess, and it was incredibly challenging finding reasonably priced flights in and out of this small city-state during this period. Also, this was the seventh world cup I’ve attended. I guess I’ve been paying this mistress for a while. Maybe my Qatar World Cup theme song could be “The House of the Rising Sun.”
So after all that, how would I rate the Qatar World Cup? It was good, not great. It was kind of a Disneyland experience. Everything was very clean, well organized and somewhat artificial. But it lacked a certain amount of passion and grit that made places like Germany, Brazil and Russia great World Cup destinations.
It all just felt off. There was one FanFest. Because of all the matches I was going to, I didn’t get to attend it. From what I was told by multiple people, it had huge lines, an over the top security process, and $15 Budweisers that two different people told me didn’t taste like Budweiser, but actually tasted kind of stale. Considering how tepid Budweiser tastes, that’s saying a lot. Conversely there were a ton of public spaces around the city with huge World Cup decorations and yet no public screens. There were no outside restaurants showing the matches, only select bars inside hotels, many with high covers. I heard it was because beIN Sports (which is funnily enough owned by the Qatari government) were charging really high fees. Also, only hotel bars are allowed to sell alcohol in Doha.
So I’d be walking around while there was a great 7pm or 10pm match going on and it really wasn’t being shown anywhere. Even though there were people walking around everywhere in the Souq Waquif area I was in. In all the other World Cup locations I’d been to one of the coolest things was to go up to a small local bar or restaurant and watch the matches with passionate locals. Not here. Despite the Qatari reps constantly harping on how soccer is part of their cultural DNA. And they didn’t even have to have alcohol sales in these public places, just showing the matches would have been enough to create a great vibe.
Then there was the public music. I saw a couple of big stages with loud music going off at night all along the Corniche (the long walkway along the Doha Bay). It sounded great. The fascinating part was there was no one ever there. For example, I walked by this area with a big “Brasil” sign that had great salsa music blasting away. It sounded like a huge party was going off. But when I got up close there was no one dancing, and really no one there.
Finally there was the pre-match experience. Before the matches different fan groups were doing their cheers, but no one could here them because of the all loud, over the top, pre-match music and over-hyped announcers being piped in. I guess the authorities just didn’t trust that there would be a true organic atmosphere here, so they had to manufacture something.
Everyone else I was with sort of felt the same way about this World Cup. The logistics and matches were great, but everything else was just off.
Oh, and about the alcohol. I was reading some blog posts of people that had arrived in Doha while I was still in Egypt. Orginally there were supposed to be alcohol sales near the stadiums before and after the matches, but not in the stadiums. Then a few days before the tournament, the Qatari Government even nixed that. All the people on the posts corroborated that. But apparently you could bring in a 100ml bottle of hand sanitizer into the stadiums. So I got creative and bought a cheap bottle of Egyptian vodka and a bunch of 100ml hand sanitizer bottles and brought them into Qatar in my checked luggage. It all worked.
I was able to enter the stadiums with these little mini vodka bottles. It was really less about drinking – I don’t drink that much anymore – and more about what I could get away with and giving the proverbial finger to the Qatari authorities. I ended up not using anywhere near the whole bottle, and gave the remainder to some friends who were staying a few days after I left.
To add to the story, I was in the Cairo airport waiting for my flight to Doha and I had about $30 worth of Egyptian pounds to get rid of. I saw a $20 bottle of decent Mexican tequila and decided to see if I could also bring that into Qatar. Alas, when I arrived in Doha they scanned my backpack and found the bottle. I had to walk over to the the customs office and donate it to their collection of confisgated alcohol. But at least the bottle of vodka made it in.
The City of Doha
As you can see below, Doha is a really well designed, state of the art city. It’s not the most exciting place, but after spending 10 weeks traveling through Tanzania and Egypt it was nice to be in a clean, modern city for a week.
The area I stayed in was called Souq Waquif and it was a re-creation of the old market section of Doha. It had a nice atmosphere and lots of small covered alleyways with all kinds of shops.
I had a nice, but way overpriced hotel room in Souq Waqif for the week I was there.
Their new metro was fast and incredibly plush.
An American became famous for creating an app that showed all the places you could drink in Doha. Here’s a picture of it on my Google Maps.
That app allowed me to find this great open air bar at the Alwadi Hotel, which became the go to place for a couple of my friends for the Qatar World Cup when they weren’t at matches.
The People at the Qatar World Cup
The best part of any World Cup is the people you meet. It’s one sport for one month and pretty much the whole world is focused on it. That’s represented in the variety of people that attend it. Below are some of the people I met while I was at the Qatar World Cup.
I met two Ecuadorians before boarding my flight. They were both from Quito, but worked in oil services for Haliburton. They had spent a lot of time in Lago Agrio, the oil boom town in the Amazon that I used as my base before and after spending a week at a lodge in the Amazon. We laughed about how rough that town was. This was their first World Cup. They weren’t that confident about Ecuador’s chances, but they wanted to at least see a couple of their matches, since Ecuador doesn’t always make it to the WC.
I sat next to an American named Grant on the plane from Cairo. He was originally from Seattle so was always a big soccer fan. Has been in Atlanta for past 12 years and runs the international business development group for the city. He was intimately involved in their WC bid and will be involved in the organization once it happens. He went to school in Germany for 3 years and also speaks French, so he’s always had an international focus. He’s here with his son.
At the first match I met two Germans from Stuttgart, one who was surprisingly wearing and LAFC hat. They had both recently visited LA and had gone to both LAFC and LA Galaxy matches. They loved the fan atmosphere at both matches and one even stayed up late at night last month to watch the exciting final where LAFC beat Philadelphia in extra time with a Garett Bale goal.
There was a Japanese guy sitting next to me at one point outside the stadium. We started talking. He said he was really stressed that he’d been here six days now with any alcohol. So I shared my vodka infused coke with him. He was incredibly happy. Wasn’t there an old TV commercial with the theme: “A coke and a smile?”
Inside the stadium I was standing next to a family in Mexican jerseys. I asked them what part of Mexico they were from. They laughed and said “Pico Rivera”. Their grandparents were from central Mexico. They were definitely Angelinos, not Mexicanos 🙂 They had gone to the 2006 World Cup together when they were both single. Now they wanted their two teenage kids to experience it.
I hung out briefly with some Mexicans from Guadalajara at a bar watching a Brazil match. The one I talked to the most owned over 20 AT&T stores throughout central Mexico. He started over 20 years ago. His brother, who was there, owned a large string of Telcel stores (the company Carlos Slim owns, which is the predominant mobile carrier in Mexico), so they are essentially rivals. Their father thought they were both crazy when they started to get into this business. Now he obviously doesn’t.
I talked to two Saudis in their white robes. They both worked security for Aramaco. Their overall head of security at the facility is an American. I was talking about the problem of having no alcohol at the matches. They surprisingly agreed. One goes to Bahrain all the time to drink. They both wanted to visit American at some point. They laughed and said they definitely wouldn’t wear their robes for that trip.
I shared a bus seat with an Australian from Brisbane and his son. He’s an air traffic controller. After building up vacation time during covid his family planned a long trip to Morocco, Spain, France, the UK and Scandinavia. He’s a rare Australian who played soccer growing up. He and his son were going to see soccer matches in Europe and then realized the World Cup was in Qatar, so he and his son came out for 4 matches in 3 days before rejoining his wife and daughter in Morocco. He’s worried the Soccoroos won’t be that good going forward because their youth development programs have gotten messed up. That was before they won two matches and qualified for the knockout stage. He’s definitely looking forward to the Olympics in Brisbane in 2032.
I met a guy from Bahrain who designs clothes and has his own store. He’s still single and in his culture his parents will choose a wife for him. He thinks it’s a much easier system than what we have. In a lot of ways, it probably is. His English wasn’t too good, so I didn’t want to delve into why he’s still not married. He has an uncle who’s lived in Wisconsin for the past 20 years and who visits back home around once a year. He loves soccer and his favorite team is Real Madrid because of all the stars they always have.
There were a lot more, but this was a nice taste on how diverse the fans were.
The Qatar World Cup Matches
My seven match tickets are below. For six the only option were e-tickets, so I’ve just included the printout list I had. Since I paid for the hospitaly package for the US match, I did get a physical copy. I ended up only attending six of them and sold my Portugal-Korea match ticket.
France vs Denmark
Denmark played a really tough, competitive match, but France just had too much talent in their 2-1 win. The Danes had some small and loud groups throughout the stadium, but the crowd was overwhelmingly rooting for Les Bleus. It was in Stadium 974, so named because it was made from 974 shipping containers.
Canada vs Croatia
Canada got a really quick goal on a counter by Jonathon Davies in the first two minutes and things were looking up. But then Croatia methodically tore through their defense for a 4-1 victory. Their one goal was the first ever for Canada in the World Cup. The crowd was probably 70/30 for the Canadians and they were really loud before Croatia started to take control of the match.
Cameroon vs Serbia
An incredibly exciting 3-3 draw. Cameroon got a wonderful first goal, then the Serbs came back with three clinical goals and finally, the Cameroonians struck with two really quick goals within a couple of minutes of each other on beautiful counterattacks near the end of the match. There was a strong contigent of Serbian fans and most of the neutrals seemed to be rooting for Cameroon.
Jonathon Wilson of The Guardian described it way better than I could: “Chaos. Two teams historically wedded to chaos. A Serbia team in chaos because of injury. A Cameroon team plunged into chaos by the expulsion of the Internazionale goalkeeper André Onana. The result, inevitably, was a match of high chaos. But what chaos! It was chaos that yielded drama, remarkable goals, an implausible fightback, a truly exceptional finish that will be remembered long after the match is forgotten and, in the end, a thrilling draw that didn’t really suit either side.”
US vs Iran
This was the money match for me, mainly because I ended up paying a high price for a hospitality ticket to ensure I see at least one US match. But also because of the intense atmosphere around the match and the incredible atmosphere inside. The crowd had to be at least 70% Iranians and they were insanely loud with their horns and chants. As most of you saw, the match itself was grueling. We got the 1-0 lead and then had to spend over 30 minutes precariously defending that lead until the end, including the 9+ minutes in stoppage time.
I was supposed to meet my two friends dressed as Elvis at 5pm at a local outdoor bar before heading over the match at 6pm. They ended up not showing up, but while I was waiting I met an American originally from Romania. He dropped out of the University of Virginia to start a solar energy company. At one point it was 350 on the Inc 500 list of small companies. He recently had to fire his CEO and head of Sales for fraud. He was enjoying getting away to Qatar for the World Cup. Next to us were a group in Iranian jerseys. It turns out they were Iranian but currently living in Canada, Dubai and Qatar. We actually didn’t talk politics, but just just about the upcoming match.
At the match, Grant from my plane ride texted me that there were two Elvis behind him. He remembered I had told him that I had some friends going to the US match dressed as Elvis. I told him to say hi for me and he took this picture. I went over to their section and saw them at half time and then ended up catching up with them on the bus back.
The best thing about the hospitality package was I got unlimted food and beer/wine for up to three hours before the match. It was a fantastic thing to do before the match.
Australia vs Denmark
Ahhh, Australia. The team that no one took seriously who basically had got two goals on two shots on goal and thereby beat Tunisia 1-0 and then Denmark 1-0 after getting flambeed by France 4-1. With those two wonderfully lucky wins, they got through to the knockout stage. When I saw Denmark lose to France 2-1, the Danes looked fantastic, but the French just had too much talent. Against the Australians, the Danes looked a bit lost and Australia took advantage of that. Good for them!
Croatia vs Belgium
Croatia need a tie to advance and Belgium needed a win. It ended up being 0-0 and Croatia got to go through. I was sitting near the Croatia end of the stadium and they were wonderfully loud throughout the match.
Portugal vs Korea
Unfortunately, I ended up not attending this match. After six matches in six days I was getting a bit worn down, I thought Portugal would rest their stars since they already clinched their knockout stage birth, and I had an early morning flight to Dubai the day after the match, which included a 10 hour layover in Oman. So I put my ticket on the FIFA resale portal to see what would happen. It surprisingly sold within 10 minutes. That made my decision for me. I was about $200 richer and a lot more well rested the next morning.