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 The Qatar national team, aka the freakin Maroons (this is real) will be contesting their first world cup, on home soil in this, the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar brought to you live in Ultra HD by the blood of countless nameless thousands and the gifts of luxury watches and bags of cash. The players Before we go further, this is important  Now that that is established, lets meet the side  I have no idea if these are the right players in the picture but the full list of players is  Every single one of them plays in the Qatari Stars League, the national football league in Qatar. Al-Sadd is the dominant squad and has the best players and win everything all the time. Left Winger Akram Afif is supposedly the best player in the league and according to transfermarkt, he is worth a cool 4 million. You'll notice I clicked on Abdelkarim Hassan. His name sounded a bit familiar and I discovered it was because he played in Europe for Belgian club KAS Eupen, as part of their ownership scheme by the same group that owns Paris St. Germain. One of the resident Belge posters mentioned him at some point and since that is what I have chosen to use valuable brain space on I remember it. Anyway I guess he wasn't that good because he's back in Qatar. All the other players I have no idea about because I've never heard of them, and I imagine neither have most of you. The manager of Qatar is former (and I mean really former, like older than some of the posters here) Barcelona youth coach Felix Sanchez. He has been in the Qatar setup since 2006 moving his way up the senior mens side in 2017. The History Qatar was, according to FIFA and probably some other people, officially part of the UK until the 60's, when they founded their own federation and fielded their own team. Since the foundation of the team, they have steadily improved and actually have become a relatively ok side in their confederation in recent memory. The government has poured a lot of money in to this team and even has gone so far as to set up academies in other countries to promote themselves and the game. During the last few tournament cycles, the Qatar national team of more than one sport has been accused of naturalizing too many players. The government countered this claim, which was egregiously true in the sport of handball, and kinda true in football, by setting up the Aspire Academy. This is the name the aforementioned academies go by around the world. The idea was to promote sport and culture, etc, etc, but the underlying accusation is that this was just a workaround way to get players from nations that have a bigger football culture in to the national side. Going through the squad list shows that there are a lot of naturalized players, maybe a little over a third. There are players from Portugal, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan and France in the side, maybe others since it's hard to find English language info on some of them. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, but the funnel of players in to the side is definitely aided by the government, something FIFA pretends is illegal as governments are not allowed to interfere with the football organizations of nations. It's notoriously difficult to gain citizenship in Qatar, so it's also quite a slap in the face to the many people who are working there under what is effectively a serfdom scheme. The Trophies Surprisingly, Qatar have won an international trophy in the past decade, which is more than quite a few sides participating in this tournament have done. They won the 2019 AFC Cup, the continental tournament for teams in Asia, beating traditionally good side Japan in the final.  They also participated in the 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup, the continental tournament for North America and the Caribbean. They placed a respectable 3rd in that tournament and I actually thought they weren't that bad. They were certainly up to the level of the tournament. They didn't have to qualify for this tournament, obviously, so there is no heroic story of underdogs triumphing against all odds. This Tournament Qatar will be in group A along with Ecuador, Senegal and the Netherlands. They may have a chance for a point against Ecuador but even a Sadio Mane-less Senegal should beat them. The Netherlands will annihilate them. Related threads There's a lot to talk about with respect to Qatar and this tournament, so there are multiple threads that may interest you more than this one, since unless FIFA has rigged everything (entirely possible and not without precedent) the team will be out after their third match. Thread for complaining about this farce of a tournament in general The original FIFA corruption thread in general Thread for unironic questions about the rules or traditions of football or really anything that seem insane about why things on the field are the way they are Honorable mentions We wouldnt be here without Sepp Blatter, so it's only right that we post the three most important things about him:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVcOV55uzwU Gigi Galli fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 02:41
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I hear they'll offer no quarter to their opponents 
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Nov 11, 2022 02:47
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I legitimately forgot the home team automatically qualifies for the World Cup.
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Nov 11, 2022 03:41
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blue footed boobie posted:I legitimately forgot the home team automatically qualifies for the World Cup. Ultimate "go opponents or giant meteor" situation, this.
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Nov 11, 2022 03:43
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I hope every match ends in a 8-0 thrashing against Qatar
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Nov 11, 2022 03:43
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Vegetable posted:I hope every match ends in a 8-0 thrashing against Qatar No, go for broke. 80-0 thrashing.
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Nov 11, 2022 03:44
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smh no mention of Sebastián Soria, Qatar's best ever player
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Nov 11, 2022 12:45
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Vegetable posted:I hope every match ends in a 8-0 thrashing against Qatar I hope Ro-Ro scores a hattrick of own goals and I say his name in the Scooby Doo voice
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Nov 11, 2022 13:02
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I wonder how much it would cost for them to advance. Would they need to pay FIFA or their opponents? Netherlands are probably too much to ask for but a nice second place with a tie from a Netherlands red card + penalty, Senegal tie and win vs Ecuador is doable I think. But it is an interesting example of the answer to the question “can you pay for a good team?”
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Nov 12, 2022 05:13
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Honestly I'm impressed they're all qatari. I assumed they'd have gone round paying fringe players to switch nationalities
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Nov 12, 2022 08:13
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builds character posted:I wonder how much it would cost for them to advance. Would they need to pay FIFA or their opponents? Netherlands are probably too much to ask for but a nice second place with a tie from a Netherlands red card + penalty, Senegal tie and win vs Ecuador is doable I think. Ask South Korea much it cost them to make it to the semi final and multiply that by ten
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Nov 12, 2022 14:59
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Loving Africa Chaps posted:Honestly I'm impressed they're all qatari. I assumed they'd have gone round paying fringe players to switch nationalities Ro-ro is Portuguese, almoez Ali is Sudanese, bassam al Rawi is Iraqi, there’s probably more. They just naturalise players with Arabic sounding names these days so no one notices as much
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Nov 15, 2022 23:05
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Bogan Krkic posted:Ro-ro is Portuguese, almoez Ali is Sudanese, bassam al Rawi is Iraqi, there’s probably more. They just naturalise players with Arabic sounding names these days so no one notices as much Yeah as I was trolling through the sauad list I found quite a few names we (im assuming most of us in here) as westerners wouldn’t give a second look, but aren’t Qatari by birth at least. Something close to a third or more of the team is naturalized, usually through that Aspire Academy thing I mentioned in the OP. There’s a dude from France in there even.
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Nov 16, 2022 01:02
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I had Fifa 96 for the Sega Game Gear and Qatar was in that game for some reason. They were the worst team in the game by a good margin. Anyway that's about all I know about Qatar.
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Nov 16, 2022 07:39
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Imagine wasting all those batteries to play as qatar
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Nov 16, 2022 08:40
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Jose posted:Imagine wasting all those batteries to play as qatar Imagine wasting $200b to play as Qatar.
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Nov 20, 2022 23:04
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:No, go for broke. 80-0 thrashing. I hope this happens in both remaining games and the two top scorers celebrate by kissing in the centre circle.
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Nov 21, 2022 00:46
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Nov 25, 2022 16:02
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"You never had me, you never had Qatar!"
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Nov 25, 2022 16:04
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Qataren't
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Nov 26, 2022 19:36
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Qa****.
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Dec 6, 2022 23:46
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abuse culture. posted:Qa****. Qa_________****
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Dec 6, 2022 23:55
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Qa******ar
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Dec 7, 2022 02:58
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