BEHIND THE PLAY #45

I left for the 2022 World Cup with my daughter almost two years to the day. It was a strange one in that nobody really wanted to go. It was seen as a compromised pick for the World Cup and one in a country with a very dubious human rights record. I’d gone to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil with two friends. It was a much easier sell for all of us.

Then Canada qualified. For the first time since 1986. I would’ve gone to Afghanistan if it meant seeing Canada in a World Cup. So I went. Here’s a look back using photos and videos I shot and starting with the qualifiers I got to see.

I’ve been going to men’s teams World Cup qualifiers since they were played at Swangard Stadium so with this team poised to make a real run at making the Qatar World Cup, I got swept up and got tickets for the two games in Edmonton - the two Iceteca qualifiers that included us finally beating Mexico in a World Cup qualifier as well as a win over Costa Rica. I then went to Toronto for the clincher over Jamaica at BMO Field on a day that made Iceteca feel like a beach day in Montego Bay. I got to do both those trips with two of my kids.

I’ll get to Qatar shortly but really thought these qualifiers were a big part of the story and since they were the only ones I got to and the photos and videos I got are pretty decent I’d include them.

EDMONTON

Here’s our reactions, in two parts, in the last couple minutes of the game. I’m not a yeller and screamer at games. This was the exception. Wildly cheering a routine save by Milan Borjan in injury time against Mexico when we’re up by one? Yeah, I did that. An even later corner kick in that game? Woo hoo! Swearing at a Mexican player that I thought got a red card (it was only a yellow)? That was me too. I sort of cringe now but still mainly laugh at it. It was awesome.

TORONTO

I had been in Toronto in March once before. It was for a U19 national team training camp before a trip to Switzerland and Sweden for five games. Pretty much sub-zero all the way which, you know, was great prep for the Youth World Cup in the USSR five months later…in August. Anyways, maybe I’d forgotten how cold Toronto can get in March but even the locals around us said it was way too cold for this time of year. Most of it was wind chill but when you’re there you don’t care what’s causing it if you’re freezing.

These two videos sum it up well. The team bus arriving two hours before the game with about 500 amped up fans there ready to welcome them. Pre-game (above) and after we went up 2-0 and it was clear we were going to qualify for the 2022 World Cup (below). I still smile at us finally out-CONCACAF’ing our opponents. Mexico and Costa Rica in Edmonton in October? Iceteca and six points. Jamaica in the last home qualifying game the following March? Meet Toronto’s wind chill. We won 4-0. The ref played zero injury time and Jamaica were off the field and in their dressing room before Alastair Johnston had run the length of the field to celebrate with the Voyageurs.

Post-game celebrations after qualifying for the 2022 World Cup.

QATAR

And now Qatar. I’ll say this from the outset. Qatar ran a 32 team World Cup in one city. Never been done before. Not even close. You can get all pedantic and say that one stadium was in Al Khor, a city Qatar is putting billions into in terms of infrastructure but it’s about the same distance from Doah as UBC is from Langley (55km). It was an incredible exercise in logistics and organization to run four round robin games every day from November 20th to December 2nd (aside from the first two days which had one and three).

We arrived around 6am on November 22nd. I’d paid for an extra night of accommodation knowing we’d arrive jet-lagged after a long journey and would need to get into our room immediately for a sleep as we had tickets for France v Australia that night at 10pm. So I was feeling pretty good about that decision as we got to check-in at the fan village not far from the airport as we’d paid for the night that had just elapsed. Unfortunately this proved to be the only incidence of disorganization during our whole stay as staff were overwhelmed with arrivals and had made a mess of check-in having apparently lost track of which rooms were available and which weren’t. Suffice to say it started getting nasty and police were quickly on hand. Through a multi-national ad-hoc task force of supporters from Japan, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Canada (us) we worked together, sharing info and strategy. The Saudi guy was awesome. He spoke the language and pointed out to them that I had to be sorted first as I’d already paid for the night before while some others were just trying to check-in early on the day. It was all sorted within two hours.

There was a lot of talk about how Qatar was going to come up with enough accommodation for everyone coming to the World Cup. 32 teams in one city had never been done before. A big piece of the solution were the ‘fan villages.’ The rooms were modest, functional little things but the village had a supermarket, loads of pop-up carnival type takeout restaurants, viewing areas to watch games on huge screens and it was a short walk to where the buses took you to the nearby stadium and the Metro took you to all the others. Very well thought out. Here’s a little tongue in cheek tour of our room.

Shot this from a bus that had stopped to allow over a hundred camels to walk past us. Someone said they were police camels similar to RCMP using horses here. The funny thing is this was the only time we saw camels the whole trip.

Ran into some Vancouver soccer community types here at Canada House as well as several CSA Board members. Nice place to pre-game before the Canada v Croatia tilt. The $250 ticket to get in was steep but included six poolside beers and food.

When the players came out for the warm-up in the first game against Belgium it was definitely frog in the throat time. I remember Kamal Millar who was fantastic that game completely wound up and seemed to have tears streaming down his face when they first ran across to where the Canadian supporters were.

We saw eight games at the Qatar World Cup. All three Canada games plus France v Australia the day we arrived, Brazil v Serbia (the game where the goal voted best of the tournament was scored by Richarlison), Portugal v Uruguay, England v Wales (the only game we had front row seats for which was cool) and Holland v Ecuador. We saw games eight of our ten days in Qatar not counting the day we left early in the morning after the Canada v Morocco game.

There were many people who were seeing multiple games a day. We spoke to someone in the fan village who was doing three games and heard second hand of people who were going to do four. The round robin games were all scheduled at 1p, 4pm, 7pm and 10pm local time except the last games of the round robin when all teams in the same group had to kickoff at the same time. So given the proximity of the stadiums and the fact that the organizers had arranged for express buses to get people from the game they were at, as soon as it ended, to the stadium where the next game was it was possible to do multiple games in a day. Something which was near impossible at any other World Cup but not here. We were almost an anomaly seeing eight games on eight separate days. We also got lucky in that all our games were for the cooler 7pm and 10pm kickoff times

Impressions of Qatar? Spotlessly clean. No sign of homelessness or poverty in general (yes, I’m aware that could’ve been removed from public sight as other big events have done including the 2010 Olympics here). No sign of addiction issues as we see in downtown Vancouver. No traffic issues. No sign of trees either. Something you notice coming from Vancouver but it is essentially a desert so no surprise there.

Impressions of the World Cup itself? I’ve likened it to a trip to Disneyland. The number of staff they had, everywhere, was over the top. Super friendly and helpful but when you got off a Metro to go to a game, it was clear there was one route (always long and winding so there was constant movement and no stop-start) that you were all corralled into taking did you really need several hundred volunteers or staff to guide you there?

Ticketing was interesting. I’m not sure if this was the first all-digital ticket World Cup but if you were counting on buying tickets from re-sellers once you got to Qatar you were in for a shock. They had anticipated every way this could be done and while I’m sure some managed to do it outside the FIFA ticketing portal which, in my experience worked very well for buying and selling tickets you didn’t need, I saw no one selling tickets any other way.

It was clear to see that a World Cup where alcohol was severely limited made for a much more docile atmosphere. Factor in an autocratic government that doesn’t do the whole ‘right to protest’ thing and back it with severe consequences and you get a World Cup that is incredibly organized and safe…like a trip to Disneyland.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the 2026 version and having seen Mexican fans going nuts at the Brazil World Cup I’m hoping to get down to Mexico City and/or Monterrey to see some games there as well as the ones here in Vancouver.