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The battle for home: the strange way in which the Qatar national team prepares for the World Cup | Israel today

2022-08-07T08:07:26.100Z


Even though the local league has started and while it is in complete isolation, the Qatari soccer team is currently going through a grueling training camp to arrive ready for the World Cup which it will host • At the same time as the support of the teams and the fans ("can build an identity"), there are also quite a few criticisms ("you don't gain anything from friendly matches" ) • Will the strange move lead to an unprecedented sensation?


The Qatari Stars League opened this week with a real sensation.

Al-Saad, the champion in the last two seasons, lost for the first time since March 2020 and ended a streak of 49 league games without a loss.

And not only did she lose, she grabbed a fourth in 4:3 against the newcomer - Al Markia - who managed to come back from a 2:0 deficit to win.

"We are missing a lot of players," excused Al-Saad coach Juanma Lillo, "and it was important to take advantage of the opportunity to give playing minutes to other players."

The point is that Al-Saad does not just lack players.

It was without the stars Akram Afif, Hassan Al-Haydus, Ali Asad, Abdelkarim Hassan and Saad A-Shib.

In fact, the champion opened the season without 15 squad players who are traveling around the world as part of the pretentious, special, bizarre and ambitious project of the Qatar team - the host of the World Cup.

Knowing that the World Cup that will open in November will be the historical turning point for Qatari football, the local association decided to take all the measures that would make the debut of the team respectable.

The Spanish coach Felix Sánchez, who earned the status of one who is listened to thanks to a historic win in the 2019 Asian Championship and the promotion of sports in the country, submitted a work plan immediately after the group stage draw, the bottom line of which is this: you need to start working, and now.

Qatar players celebrate.

will arrive ready in Ecuador, photo: Gettyimages

In order to reduce the gaps from the leading and more experienced teams, and with the goal of succeeding at least in the group stage, Sanchez was able to fulfill the fantasy of every national coach and was given unlimited working time with the team.

In May, he called a squad of 27 players for the first preparatory games, and since then this group has been immersed in a training camp for the World Cup.

With the approval of the teams, led by the champion Al-Saad, for which most of the team's players play, all the national players were released in order to prepare for the World Cup - six months of a closed camp, full of training, full of games, increasing expectations.

"It's not a completely crazy idea, but it's a bit strange," an official at one of the league's teams told the BBC.

Even if they have criticism against this move, the coaches of the league teams will not dare to say it openly, but under a pseudonym and on foreign networks.

"This is too long a period of time and it takes the players out of a competitive framework," added another source.

"The biggest problem is that these players don't have official games and it is known that nothing is gained or lost in friendship," said one of the leaders of the local teams to the British website, adding: "The only good thing is that they can build an identity and create some kind of 'togetherness' that covers their personal disadvantage."

Sanchez (left).

He got everything he wanted, photo: Gettyimages

Will South Korea follow?

The association heard the criticisms and clarified that this camp is not completely closed - from time to time the players will be allowed to meet their family members, and in some cases they will even be allowed to return to Qatar for a few days.

And yet, this camp that started in Spain, moved to Italy and will continue in Austria is the tool with which Sanchez will try to make history.

A similar history was made by the South Korean national team 20 years ago.

So, in preparation for the 2002 World Cup, the Asian host went to a five-month training camp and, as I recall, reached the semi-finals.

This is exactly the kind of success the Qataris want to reproduce, but it seems that it won't be easy.

One of their warm-up games was planned to be against Watford, but due to pressure from the English fans, who objected to a match against a team that represents a country that violates human rights, the match was cancelled.

The matches that did take place failed to bring any good news: there was an embarrassing loss to Linfield of Northern Ireland, draws against Antwerp, Mallorca, Lazio and Fiorentina, and one single victory over Udinese's substitutes.

It is evident that the Qataris have defensive discipline and order, but along with that they lack offensive creativity.

Until its opening game in the World Cup against Ecuador and until the meetings against the Netherlands and Senegal, the Qataris still have quite a bit of time to work together and correct the deficiencies.

In the planning: a training camp in Austria that will include a quadruple tournament against Morocco, Ghana and Jamaica, in addition to preparatory games against Canada and Chile and countless training sessions.

The Qatari federation is less interested now that the league teams are paying the price, especially Al Saad, because the team's success in the home World Cup could be worth much more.

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Source: israelhayom

All sports articles on 2022-08-07

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