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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night Open Thread: The Qatar World Cup Draw

Late Night Open Thread: The Qatar World Cup Draw

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Best I can make out from the official site, picks will be made starting 7pm Friday Qatar time, which is noon EDT. Should I prepare to take dutiful notice of this, or is the asterisked Clash in Qatar being treated as one of those global embarrassments about which the less said, the better?

Per ESPN:

DOHA, Qatar — For Qatar, the World Cup draw Friday is the bell signaling the last lap of a race that began more than two decades ago. That’s when the Gulf state — poor in square miles, population and (back then) name recognition, but rich in per capita GDP and ambition — decided to make sports one of the central planks of its development.

Sports would raise the country’s profile, drive business opportunity, provide some sort of legacy for the day when, inevitably, the oil and natural gas run out. It was just one prong of the strategy — security (the U.S. military’s Gulf Central Command is in Doha), media (Al Jazeera) and education were also priorities — but in some ways, it was the most significant.

The most significant step in the journey was back on Dec. 2, 2010, when a vote by FIFA’s Executive Committee awarded them the 2022 World Cup. It would turn out to be a day of controversy — three of the 25 ExCo members were suspended for corruption before the vote even took place, another 11 who voted that day were subsequently banned, prosecuted or suspended, and longtime FIFA president Sepp Blatter was ousted a few years later — but it meant Qatar was on its way and there was no turning back…

The draw Friday will determine how the 32 participating nations will line up in groups of four. Well, almost — real life, of course, has gotten in the way in the form of a pandemic and a war, which means three spots are still to be determined. Barring any further twists, one will be contested by Ukraine, Scotland and Wales, another by Australia, United Arab Emirates and Peru and the final one by Costa Rica vs. New Zealand. While most of FIFA’s 211 member nations had their World Cup dreams crushed a long time ago — and a few just in the past 10 days — fans in 37 countries can continue to hope, at least until June, when the final qualifiers are played….

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    eclare

    A friend of mine who follows soccer much more closely than I said if you took the corruption in the NCAA, NFL, IOC, and every other sport, and added it up, FIFA would still dwarf it.

    That being said, I’m sure I’ll watch.

  3. 3.

    mrmoshpotato

    As someone who is thinking about Taco Bell right now, I say fuck this travesty.

  4. 4.

    LeftCoastYankee

    The last one was in Russia, and the next on is in Canada/USA/Mexico.

    At this point, I’m hoping we won’t be as shitty as Qatar or Russia by 2026.

    Also looking for the team Qatar bought to lose all its games.

  6. 6.

    LeftCoastYankee

    They also moved it up 6 months to be in the (Northern Hemisphere’s) Winter and the middle of the European club season (as opposed to at the end, in the summer).

    When you can piss off a whole bunch of rich assholes to accommodate a bunch of even richer (bigger) assholes, that’s… a sport of its own sort I suppose.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    Ouch.

    Pulled a couple of facial muscles stemming from the voluminous yawn this topic produced.

    ;)

  10. 10.

    Tony Jay

    It’s rancid. The only reason Qatar landed the 2022 Tournament was because the Qataris were willing to pay the obscenely inflated bribes (financial, fleshy and flattering) required to get FIFA’s princelings even moderately turgid. It’s not about ‘encouraging the spread of the sport’ or ‘creating a legacy of excellence’. It’s about sportswashing, corruption and ego.

    That said, there’s a slowly building drip-drip of realisation on these shores that individual players are going to be the ones eventually left holding the bag for ‘choosing’ to splash around in all that blood and gore. Everyone just expects FIFA to be appalling, with the other continental bodies following close behind in the scumbag stakes, and anyone who thinks the sponsors are going to take a hit is a fool. The players, though, with their shiny social-media profiles and their often outspoken support for what the global community of trolls, goblins and orcs would sneeringly call ‘Woke’ issues…. they’re the ones that our cowardly Media organisations are going to zero in on as the people legitimising Qatar’s fuckery.

    If England’s second best football team weren’t owned by Qatar and the apple of the English Football Media’s eye, I’d almost expect high-profile English players to start making noises via their agents about how increasingly uncomfortable they are with the idea of playing their beautiful game on the bones of thousands of dead slaves. But it is, so I don’t.

    Probably.

  11. 11.

    Origuy

    @Tony Jay:  Do you mean Man City? Wikipedia says it’s owned by Abu Dhabi. Close, but not the same country. The only team I could find that is owned by Qatar is Paris Saint-Germain.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    Well, that came on with the suddenness of a switch being flipped.

    Winds forceful, with low-pitched “Whoooo” keening audible in the domicile. Temp must have already dropped 10 degrees within the last hour. Can hear sheets of rain passing by outside.

  16. 16.

    p.a.

    Wish I knew Italian to enjoy the angst that must going on now that they’ve missed ANOTHER world cup.  I always enjoy the quadrennial English “it’s our sport, we should win!” whinge.

  17. 17.

    Amir Khalid

    @Tony Jay:

    The entities that own the Emirate of Mancunia and Petroleum St-Germain both do so as an an explicit exercise in sport-washing the rather stinky regime back home, so any confusion is quite understandable.

  19. 19.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Though when it comes to bragging rights, I wonder which of them titter-thee most.

    Citeh are at least a highly functioning team that would challenge in any of Europe’s top leagues, even if they do fall hilariously short whenever that over-thinking devil on Pep Guardiola’s shoulder starts whispering “One cool trick could guarantee you Champions League glory” into his ear.

    PSG have three of football’s most iconic attacking players in MmmmmmBop, The Artistic Lifestyle Project Formerly Known As Neymar and Senora Messi’s bored little beardie-man, but they’ve proven time and again that they’re not a team capable of winning outside of France and they know it.

    Then again, who cares? Watford tomorrow, potentially back to the top of the Premier League, with all the pressure back on Pep’s beautiful young things to show they can do the hard work without a Kompany or an Aguerro in the side. Allons Y!

  20. 20.

    Tony Jay

    @Raven:

    It’s a pity, because one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the last few tournaments is dropping into the BJ Football threads to find your ornery old ass asking sensible questions like “What the f#&k is a ‘False 9’ supposed to be?” and “Why is that p#&#y flopping around like a hooked tarpon?”

    Damn you, FIFA! Why must you take all the joy out of life?

  23. 23.

    Raven

    @Tony Jay: Amir had me “try” to read “Inverting the Triangle” to no avail (I was happy to see Coach Beard reading on the plane over). That said I do watch the endless parade of “the biggest match EVAH” and enjoy them. Just don’t put it up against the National Champion Georgia Bulldogs!!!

  24. 24.

    Raven

    I have a friend from Colombia who always goes. He got a lip infection blowing the vuvuzela in South Africa!

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    @Raven:

    My bad. I didn’t realise that the writer assumed a baseline understanding of association football, and how a team is organised organised, that a fan like me would have but someone who had never followed the game ight not.

  28. 28.

    Tony Jay

    @Raven:

    Hey, I get it. Best thing about this year’s UK coverage of that Superb Owl game was the – very – frequent cutaways to the studio so one of three enormous black gentlemen could explain to me what I’d just seen, why it had happened and what it all meant.

    Frigging finally! 500% improvement in enjoyability.

  31. 31.

    Just One More Canuck

    Canada is in it for the first time since 1986 so yes I’ll be watching it. Add in the fact that my daughter is pretty likely to get a soccer scholarship then it becomes a hell yes

    maybe they’ll even score a goal this time

  32. 32.

    Tony Jay

    @raven:

    I’m not familiar with the rules so I just took that one as meaning exactly what it sounded like.

    His poor wife!

  33. 33.

    Tony Jay

    @Just One More Canuck:

    I know it’s disgusting, but I think if I watch it via illegal streaming using a VPN I can be morally superior and still enjoy watching England stumble through the qualifying group with the ball and chain of ENGLAND’S HARRY KANE and his indifferent form weighing them down before getting dumped out (possibly in the Final) after Southgate freezes in blind-panic and reverts to his patented Ten Defenders and a Slow Bearded Mannequin strategy.

    Beer will help.

  34. 34.

    Just One More Canuck

    • @Tony Jay: as a fan of sports governed by two of the most corrupt and greedy organizations ever devised by man (FIFA and the FIA) beer always helps

    I’m just happy that someone whispered in the collective ears of Canada Soccer that it is easier to qualify if you score. It took them decades to figure it out

  36. 36.

    burnspbesq

    @Just One More Canuck:

    Canada in Pot 4 is a joke. Whatever group they get drawn into is likely to ge the group of death.

    want a group of death? How about Belgium, Germany, Senegal, and Canada?

  37. 37.

    Just One More Canuck

    @burnspbesq: My father-in-law is from Berlin – he generally will watch a couple of games with us.  I’ve made it clear that if Germany and Canada are in the same, there will be no cheering for Germany allowed

  38. 38.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Yutsano: Thank you – she is attending some ID camps in the next few weeks (both here in Canada and in the US). Her marks won’t be an issue and she’s a strong player, so fingers crossed

  39. 39.

    cope

    Focusing on the games themselves and trying to ignore their vile, disgusting, corrupt context, the games  will be played at 6 AM, 11 AM and 3 PM eastern time.  This is important to me because the tradition a couple of soccer coaching buddies and I have is to get together at each other’s houses to watch different games.  The host is responsible for making a dish or dishes representative of the culture of one of the teams playing.  Last World Cup, I got to make a lamb dish for the opening game involving Saudi Arabia and  yucca fries and empanadas for a game involving Argentina.

    It’s kind of like living in this country now days:  focus on the good and pure parts while trying not to get overcome by the horrible.

  40. 40.

    Tony Jay

    @Just One More Canuck: 

    I’m just happy that someone whispered in the collective ears of Canada Soccer that it is easier to qualify if you score. It took them decades to figure it out

    Give them some latitude, it’s baffled half of the managers in the Premier League for much the same time period.

    And a scholarship playing footie? That must mean she’s more than a cut above. Congratulations, Additional Canuck!

  41. 41.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Tony Jay: Thanks – she’s worked so hard to turn herself into the player she is. Trust me, she certainly didn’t inherit any soccer skill from her parents – this is all her

  42. 42.

    J R in WV

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Double Wow on the opera singing. And in a great space with like a 4-6 second hang time, also too. Hope she can hang in there for a successful career!!

  43. 43.

    Mike S

    I’ve been wondering if I should change my handle. I’ve been here since John was a Republican coming around because torture but am not as active as I was back then.

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