Saudi Rowdies, no dogs and gay icons everywhere: My 10 hot takes from week one of the World Cup – The Telegraph

Doha’s souq, the Disneyland pretend old town at the city’s heart, has become the gathering place for fans at this World Cup, meeting there to enjoy its restaurants and open spaces. Argentines, Moroccans, Tunisians, Saudis, Croats, Spaniards, Germans, representatives of all the countries involved, have gathered there in huge numbers. They are noisy, they are excited, they chant and bang drums. They move through the tight streets loudly proclaiming their affiliation. But when they meet up, there is no aggravation. The atmosphere is convivial and jolly. And you cannot help thinking the lack of drink may be the reason.

True, despite colleague Thom Gibbs’s pessimistic account, you can buy beer here (there is, for instance, a bar in the main media centre). But it is expensive. And most of the fans do not bother. Which, ultimately, makes life a lot less fractious.

The Senegal drummers

It is not simply that they hammer at their drums so loudly it loosens the fillings of anyone within fifty yards. It is the fact they do it at a rhythm which is on the speedy side of quick that makes the musicians in the Senegal fan band so impressive. And they do it non-stop throughout 90 minutes of their team’s performance. Never mind the players, the Senegalese fan drummers must be getting the most substantial physical work out in Qatar. 

Being in one city has its advantages

One of the most obvious ways in which the Qatar World Cup bid subverted Fifa’s own rule book is that it is all being held in one place. The Fifa regulations used to state that no one city could have more than three stadiums, the idea to make a World Cup a countrywide experience. Qatar’s only conurbation is Doha, so all eight stadiums have been built in a city about the size of Sheffield. 

Putting everything in one place, however, enhances the atmosphere. The metro system is packed with different sets of fans mixing on their way to the four matches a day. The malls reverberate to football chants. Everything is geared to the World Cup experience. It is like a football theme park. Which is oddly less unpleasant than it sounds.

Saudi Rowdies

Qatar has spent some £200 billion on staging the tournament largely in a bid to seize international attention, to be reckoned the biggest hitter in the Gulf. But the Saudis seem to be trolling that ambition. Not least on the pitch, where their victory over Argentina was of a sort the limp Qatar team could never hope to emulate. And in the stands too, their fans are way more engaged than the locals.

Most Qatari supporters have watched on in quiet disappointment, many leaving the stadium when it is clear their side is going to lose. The Saudis, by contrast, have been loud, bouncing and committed. And here in force. They have filled the streets and metros with noise. In the west we have come to think of their country as one of draconian control. Seeing their young men (and the occasional woman) getting publicly over-excited is a pleasant subversion of expectation.

You need a jumper 

Every day in Qatar is the same: 28 degrees in the sun, the temperature of a lovely English June day. Yet every indoor space, every shop, the metro system, the buses, all the stadium work rooms, are kept at a cool 18 degrees. It is like spending your day stuck in the meat aisle at Tescos; you feel permanently refrigerated.

There are an awful lot of security guards

Everywhere you go in this city, uniformed security stands in the way. Though quite what some of the sizable army of guards are securing is hard to work out. Walk along the corniche and every couple of yards, there they are, apparently protecting trees, bushes, lampposts. Four or five stand at either side of a pedestrian crossing, ensuring nobody steps out in front of the traffic. Except traffic has been re-routed elsewhere for the duration of the tournament. 

At stadiums, the security folk are out in huge numbers. Though their principal purpose seems less to be ensuring safety more securing the brand integrity of World Cup sponsors. The other day I had a takeaway coffee taken from me as I arrived for a game. “This is not a sponsor,” I was told by a polite chap from Ghana, “you cannot take it in.” As a matter of interest, I asked, which was the official coffee sponsor of the World Cup? “I don’t know,” came the reply. “But it is not that one.”

Beckham is not alone

There is a lengthy line of former players anxious to do their bit to support David Beckham in his bold attempt to reduce the height of the Qatari money mountain. There’s Steven Gerrard fronting Hyundai’s new global sustainability campaign on Qatari television (“we can still win this game”). There’s Cafu and Robert Lewandowski clowning around on the Qatar Airways safety video. 

And best of all, there is John Terry on the local television channel Bein Sports, offering half-time analysis on England matches in an entirely Arabic speaking environment. It works like this: the host asks a somewhat confused looking Terry a question about the game in Arabic; he waits a moment while it is translated via his ear piece. He then answers in English. Then the host waits awhile as his insight is translated back. The pauses are not insubstantial. Mind, it can’t be easy to find the correct words in Arabic for “they need to be finding them little pockets of space”. 

Every shopping mall is soundtracked by Queen, George Michael and Elton John

In a country that criminalises homosexuality, is anyone going to tell them?

No dogs

While post-pandemic Britain seems to be in the grip of cockapoo mania, there are no dogs of any sort in Doha. The occasional feral cat is visible, hiding from the sun under a 4×4. But of dogs there is not a sign. No one walking them, no one cooing over them, no one picking up their mess. 

The stadiums are magnificent

The Al Bayt, designed to resemble a Bedouin marquee, the 974, built entirely from old shipping containers, the beautiful, sweeping Education City Stadium: all of the freshly built World Cup venues are masterpieces of modern stadium design. 

But the one that really takes the breath away is the Lusail Iconic Stadium, where the final will take place. It seats 88,966 and is jaw-dropping in scale and architecture. Everything about it works, from the sightlines to the way it holds the crowd noise. You might call it the Martin Peters of arenas: a place 10 years ahead of its time. What happens to it after the tournament is unclear. But if they are looking to take it down and rebuild it somewhere else, any putative new owner of Manchester United ought to get in touch pronto.