By now we all know how Qatar “won” the rights to host the 2022 World Cup. How FIFA’s ongoing corruption allowed them to essentially buy it; and why their appalling treatment of migrant workers, attitudes to women and the LGBTQ+ community, the astronomical cost of building the stadiums and infrastructure, the necessity to move the tournament from summer to winter, alongside the lack of any discernible football pedigree should have prevented them from ever doing so. Yet for your hopeless football obsessive it is still the World Cup and, as myopic as it seems, why some of us simply couldn’t resist going to the latest staging of the tournament.
The World Cup is absolute heaven for anyone who wholeheartedly adores football. Every four years we are able to immerse ourselves in nothing but football for a full four weeks. As a kid I remember being completely absorbed by Espana 82, the first tournament that I truly fully remember, while on a family holiday on the Costa Del Sol, although sadly we didn’t get to go to any of the actual matches, and then relishing Mexico 86 and Italia 90 when they came around.
As I grew into my 20’s and 30’s the World Cup still punctuated my life every four years, putting pretty much everything else on hold for each tournament in order to watch as many of the games as I possibly could. Then in 2010 a mate of mine from school, Paul (much more on him later) went to South Africa for the first tournament to be held on African soil, his pictures and stories of what it was like sowed the seeds in both mine and, at the time, my fiancée’s minds.
Almost immediately we decided that if at all possible, we would head to Brazil in 2014 to see what experiencing the tournament live was really like. At the same time, we decided that after 11 years together and under increasing pressure from our respective families, we might as well tie the knot as we now had the ideal honeymoon destination.
From the two games we saw in the Maracanã: watching Argentina overcome a stubborn Bosnia-Herzegovina side thanks in no small part to a trademark brilliant goal from a certain Leo Messi, and then watching Chile out-press and outfight reigning champions Spain, we were both inextricably hooked on this very special tournament. On our last day in Rio, and with no pre-planning whatsoever, we incredibly bizarrely actually bumped into Paul in a bar on Copacabana beach and by unspoken agreement we all three knew that we would be going to the next edition four years later, Russia as it was to be.
Two matches in Moscow (Mexico upsetting holders Germany and Senegal beating Poland), while staying at the completely surreal Hotel Cosmos, followed by a trip to St Petersburg to watch Brazil and Costa Rica, made for another fantastic trip and our band of World Cuppers was expanded by Paul’s mate Glen, his father-in-law Phil, Our Kid and my father as we managed to secure two lots of tickets for that Brazil game. By this point we knew that despite all the (justifiable) negativity towards the hosts, Qatar was going to be all systems go.
For more on our adventures in Russia, the links are below:
The Preparation
The requisite preparation for this particular version of the competition brought with it more complexity than in the previous tournaments we had attended. The first stage was to book our flights to and from Doha as uniquely all the games would be played in and around Qatar’s only major city. This was easily enough done and then it was a case of trying to secure ourselves some match tickets.
Rather amazingly given the expense of getting to Qatar, and the fact that a large number of the usual fans would not be travelling, we were only successful in getting tickets in one out of the five games that we applied for, albeit an intriguing-looking clash which would see Argentina face Qatar’s neighbour Saudi Arabia. Maybe they were holding back tickets to create the illusion of significant demand?
In the second round of ticket applications, we went completely to town: putting in for a grand total of eight matches and were successful in four which were all on different days, so we ended up with the appetising schedule of five games in five days.
One we had confirmation of our tickets, we then needed to secure some accommodation, a process that in theory sounded straightforward enough, but didn’t necessarily turn out that way. Despite advertising what seemed like a plentiful array of options from hotels to apartments to cruise ships and even the fan villages (which strangely weren’t pictured, I wonder why?), there wasn’t very much available at all to actually book, and at that point the tournament was no more than four and a half months away. Eventually we managed to find a suitable three-bedroom apartment just outside the centre of Doha, although we nearly ended up with three whole apartments- yours truly having misunderstood the “units required” question!
After that there was just the small matter of applying for and getting our Hayya cards: the Fan ID that was needed to get into Qatar and also to access all of the stadiums, as well as providing free metro and bus travel. A process that once you had met the photo and copy of passport requirements was fairly simply and only took a couple of days for four of our party, traumatically for Paul it was to prove a whole lot more tortuous.
Due to a technical error on the Qatari side of the online system, Paul’s application was showing as “pending” right up to the point that he was due to set off to the airport to check-in for our flight. Despite countless phone calls costing a fortune, emails and assurances that it would be sorted in a matter of days, he was still sweating on whether he would be allowed to board the flight right up to arriving at the terminal.
Introducing the Qatar 2022 World Cup “Squad”
Before going any further with the tales of our Middle Eastern World Cup adventure, it feels pertinent to introduce you to our “squad” for the 2022 tournament:
From left to right: Phil, Roger, Paul (when he finally arrived!), Gaz & Kay
- Paul- Tranmere Rovers die-hard (you knew I was going to write that didn’t you mate!), intending to go to his fourth consecutive World Cup, although for some unexplained reasons the Hayya Card officials took their time in allowing him to actually get there!
- Phil- Paul’s father-in-law, although not too much older than the rest of us. Newcastle United fan who carries the uncanny ability to be able to link almost every conversation he has with anyone he meets back to his beloved Toon. Loves a drink and a cigarette which helps with the intra-squad bonding, well at least with two of the other members (clue: K*y & G*z).
- Kay– my better half and soul mate who unlike many (the vast majority?) of other wives, can think of nowhere she would rather be when the World Cup is on than actually at the tournament itself. Outside of the major international tournaments we spend most of our life together following the fortunes of the mighty O’s (Leyton Orient) either in E10 or random far-flung corners of the country.
- Roger- making his World Cup bow in 2022, another fellow Wirralonian and a dedicated Liverpool fan. Roger was to play a pivotal role in securing taxis for us whenever we needed them, although it is fair to say that he isn’t the biggest fan of Qatar’s Uber drivers.
- Gaz- yours truly, your author, a hopeless football and World Cup obsessive who can think of no better, or more constructive, use of my time than going to as many football matches as I possibly can.
The Adventure Gets Underway (well for most of us!)
With our flight due to depart at 8:30 am on Sunday morning from Heathrow Terminal 4 the hardest one to get to by public transport, Qatar Airways asking passengers to arrive 4 hours before the flight, and no Heathrow Express running, Kay and I decided that our best bet was to book ourselves into the Hilton, a mere 9 minutes’ walk from the terminal as the website usefully informed us. We of course watched our beloved O’s come back to beat Stockport 2-1 at Edgeley Park to stay top of League 2, before getting our taxi!
After a nice feed up in the hotel bar, we then had a final pint in what seemed to be a special World Cup-decorated ancillary bar, that for those of us who still show very little sign of growing up actually boasted a Subbuteo table-top football pitch set up on one of the counters. The very height of football simulation excitement for those of us old enough to remember times before EA Sports changed the world completely. Well of course there was no way the missus and I were not having a go on that! Like the main bar, this one was also very sparsely populated, which I took as an indication that this World Cup wasn’t going to be as well attended as others.
After squeezing in as much sleep as we could, Kay and I were at the check-in and ready to go at 4:25am, where there were already quite a few fans milling around, mainly England and Wales of course. Rather than end up any further back in the queue we decided to gamble and join those already suggesting which desks they thought we would be using.
Not much later Paul and Phil arrived with the news that Paul’s Hayya Card had still not been confirmed and that he was going to try to talk to the Qatar Airways staff to see if he could travel or change his flight to allow more time to get it sorted. We checked in and went to see if there was any further news. Sadly, no progress had been made and Phil and Paul advised us to go through security.
After a beer in the Lounge (well we didn’t know how readily available beer was going to be when we got there!), my phone buzzed: it was Phil reporting that he had made his way through as Paul was still in negotiations, this time with British Airways about trying to get on a later flight, and definitely wouldn’t make this one. It was gutting for all three of us, but it must have been torture for Paul. Although it brought a smile to all of our faces when Phil revealed that he had decided to dump the big bag of white powder (it was allegedly for protein shakes!) that Paul had asked him to carry for him to make sure he had enough, in the nearest bin. It would have been quite funny to see the look on the airport cleaner’s face who found it!
After a few more beers and a bit of breakfast, it was time to go and board our flight, we just hoped that there would be positive news from Paul when we landed; and additionally, that we would be able to recognise Roger who was on an earlier flight from Manchester, as the only one of us that had actually met him was Phil at Paul’s wedding and he may well have had a good few beers at that point!
The flight slipped by easily enough despite being an hour late in taking off, which seemed to be to wait for some Argentina fans on a connecting flight, and the staff were more than happy to offer us a steady supply of alcoholic drinks contrary to our initial fears. Although when we landed in Doha we realised we had missed the start of the opening match between hosts Qatar and Ecuador. Phil managed to both locate and identify Roger and after some further futile negotiation with the Hayya card people, the four of us got in a cab. We dropped Phil off at the main ticketing centre to see if there was anything to be done there before Roger, Kay and I headed to the apartment.
While our digs were not highly luxurious, the place seemed safe and was decent enough for our needs, and even had a couple of grocery shops very close by. After dumping our cases in, we stocked up on all the essentials: eggs, cornflakes, orange juice, Coca-Cola (rather unsurprisingly there wasn’t any beer!) and crisps. A couple of hours later Phil returned with the hope that he had found someone who would be able to sort Paul’s Hayya card in the morning.
Settling In
With Phil having gone down to the ticket centre again, Roger, Kay and I decided that we might as well get ourselves down to the Fan Park in the morning to see what that was all about. Through a friend Phil had managed to secure two tickets for England v Iran that was kicking off at 4pm, so in Paul’s absence Roger was going to accompany him to that.
As it was too early for any matches to be screened, there was literally almost nobody in the place other than the staff who were manning the catering outlets and those employed on the various stands erected by commercial partners. There was also little cover from the already very warm morning sunshine, in fact the whole place looked like a vast car park, which it probably was when not in use for the World Cup. There was a lone DJ performing on the vast main stage, but after a quick perusal of the overly expensive and unappetizing-looking food options and re-confirmation that only alcohol-free beer was available until 7pm, we quickly reached the easy conclusion that we would explore our options back in the main part of town.
Kay at the “absolutely heaving” Fan Zone
We got back to one of the main metro stations and asked one of the handily placed event staff if there was a hotel with a bar nearby, he gave us directions to what he assured us was “a very good hotel” about 5 minutes away. Once we arrived at his recommended option we were not very surprised to find out that there wasn’t a bar only a coffee shop, not exactly our usual choice for pre-match preparation! At that point the missus came rapidly to the rescue, suggesting she had read about the Best Western Plus in the newspaper back at home and it definitely had a bar and whilst it was reported to be more expensive than even those of us who live in London are used to, it apparently wasn’t stupidly over-priced.
After a first more-complicated-than-it-needed-to-be quest to secure an Uber, Roger finally cracked it and we rocked up to what was to become our go-to-hostelry for the week. Even better, when we reached the 14th floor we realised that there was not just the one, but in fact two bars to choose from: The Irish Pub and Asiana. Based on our experience of having watched football around the globe we decided that the Irish Pub sounded like the perfect place for your self-discerning football tourists.
To gain entry we had to negotiate with the guy on the door to prove to him that we weren’t Qatari nationals (not a difficult conclusion to reach I can assure you!). As one of us (yes it was me!) hadn’t been wise enough to have a copy of his passport or indeed his actual passport with him, it took some complex negotiations to convince him that my Hayya card with my nationality and passport number on showed him that I was in fact British.
Once inside, the place was full of real bona fide World Cup fans, you know, the ones who were here to follow their teams and enjoy the adventure while having a few beers along the way. It was the first time since we had landed that we really felt like we had arrived at a World Cup. We secured ourselves a table and ordered a long overdue round of beers. At around a tenner a pop in English pounds we were actually slightly relieved that alcohol wasn’t readily available, or we may well have been bankrupt by the end of the week! Roger also went for the sliders and fries combo from the food menu.
Almost as soon as we had settled in, Phil messaged me to tell Roger that he had spent so long at the ticket centre that he was going to make his way up to the match at Khalifa International Stadium. We then got talking to a group of England fans who looked very much as if they had been in the bar since it opened. As they were also going to the match as well they offered to take Roger with them and show him the route to the metro via the Souk. Great news for our fellow World Cup squad member, but it then turned out they were leaving in half an hour or so. Roger quickly drained his pint and set off before his sliders had turned up, we assured him that he needn’t worry as Kay and I were more than happy to polish them off on his behalf. At least he hadn’t been forced to pay in advance.
When the food did turn up the burgers themselves were in red, yellow and green buns, a new one on me it has to be said, but they were tasty and provided sufficient sustenance for us not to have to sample the “delights” available at the stadium.
Part 2: to follow next week…
football nerd 