Sunday
More sleep. And not an overwhelming sense of a country waking up with World Cup fever. The mission is to mirror what it’s like in Doha as Qatar open the first ever World Cup staged in the Middle East with a game against Ecuador. On a two-hour stroll around town before ending up at Souq Waqif, a traditional magnet for locals and tourists alike, the only signs of World Cup life are an organized rally for Qataris (100 maximum) outside Millennium Plaza, a few cars passing by waving the flags of Qatar and Palestine, and two men sat outside a refrigerator repair shop with a TV on a chair. Souq Waqif is busier, although more people are gathered around a Korean tech booth than looking for the game. There is, however, dangerous overcrowding at the Fan Festival, where too many people descend on the 40,000 room. places and are kept in a waiting area for almost an hour before being parked. An inevitable consequence, you might say, of hosting a World Cup in and around a city that offers few options for football fans.
Quick guide
Qatar: beyond football
Spectacle
It’s a World Cup like no other. For the past 12 years, the Guardian has reported on the issues surrounding Qatar 2022, from corruption and human rights abuses to the treatment of migrant workers and discriminatory laws. The best of our journalism is collected on our dedicated Qatar: Beyond the Football homepage for those who want to dig deeper into the issues beyond the pitch.
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Monday
A day at the main media center, the football reporter equivalent of The Terminal with Tom Hanks. You might never leave. And maybe that’s the point. It has a hair and beauty salon, a gym, a laundry, a bar, restaurants, a large workspace, two virtual stadium “experiences” ( watch games in the cinema, basically), two press conference rooms and a bus terminus from where you can travel to all games. France head coach Didier Deschamps is besieged with requests for selfies from local journalists after watching the world champions’ opener against Australia. There is standing room only for Argentina’s press conference due to Lionel Messi’s appearance and there is a rush to exit when he finishes, leaving the Arabian head coach Arabia, Hervé Renard, addressing an almost deserted auditorium. The world’s media will be hanging on his every word within 24 hours.
Tuesday
Jackpot. Covering Messi in his last World Cup was already special, but Argentina v Saudi Arabia exceeded all expectations. On the metro to Lusail Stadium, it feels like a World Cup is finally underway with carriages packed with loud-voiced Argentinian and Saudi fans. The atmosphere inside the World Cup final venue is outstanding and rising as Saudi Arabia produce one of the biggest clashes in the history of the competition. An unforgettable moment. Then, head to the Fan Festival to see France vs Australia. A 500ml can of Budweiser – the only alcohol available – costs 50 Qatari riyals, or around £11.50.
Wednesday
Apartment – metro – media library – bus – stadium – metro – apartment. It’s more or less the daily work routine. Monotonous, yes, but you don’t miss much in Qatar. It’s the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium tonight for Canada’s first World Cup appearance in 36 years. They should beat Belgium; they lose, because they have never scored in a World Cup. It has now been four scoreless World Cup games for Canada. A record. Kicking off at 10 p.m. means returning to the apartment at 3:15 a.m., once everything is tidied up and the last metro is taken. It could be worse: the journalist next to me in the stadium opened a bottle of Coca-Cola before kick-off which exploded everywhere but especially in his cell phone. He is dead.
Thursday
During a walk along the Corniche, Doha’s seven-kilometre promenade, it is learned that a ticket for Brazil against Serbia arrived late at the Lusail stadium. We were given a Qatar-controlled ‘safe and happy migrant worker tour’ look at the World Cup final site under construction three years ago when we were here with Liverpool for the FIFA World Cup club world. It was a stadium in a desert. It is now a stadium next to a growing city of glittering towers, architecturally stunning hotels, apartment buildings, boulevards and the Place Vendôme shopping center, a French-style construction Vegas covering 1,150,000 square meters. It took Liverpool City Council longer to reconfigure Lime Street, as Richarlison can attest. Now he’s embarking on World Cup stardom.
Friday
The power of the World Cup strikes like lightning. The sound of the Iranian national anthem booed and whistled by Iranians before kick-off against Wales and the sight of distraught Iranian women and men afterwards is incredibly moving. It serves as a further rebuke to Fifa President Gianni Infantino’s pathetic plea for everyone to ‘stick to football’. Security guards, following orders, confiscate an Iranian fan’s football shirt which has “Mahsa Amini 22” printed on the back, the name and age of the woman whose death in police custody sparked the ongoing protests across the country. Shame on FIFA. Fans were reportedly arrested for carrying flags opposing the Islamic Republic and carrying banners with the protest slogan “Women, Life, Freedom”. Shame on Qatar. The Iranian players somehow block out powerful distractions to produce an emotionally charged victory.
Saturday
Apartment – metro – media library – bus – stadium – metro – apartment.
