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      Qatar’s Loudest Fans Aren’t from Qatar

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      A heaving mass of flesh and energy has brought life to the host nation’s matches at the World Cup. They are Qatar’s loudest fans, but they’re not from Qatar.DOHA, Qatar — Midway through the second half of Qatar’s match against Senegal at the World Cup, the drumming stopped as a man in a bucket hat and sunglasses rose and asked for quiet.Moments earlier, a section of the crowd — more than a thousand strong, almost all men, all of them in identical maroon T-shirts with the word “Qatar” in English and Arabic — had been chanting in unison at the direction of four fan leaders. But now the sea of men understood what was expected, and they followed the order and fell into a strange silence as the match noise swirled around them inside Al Thumama Stadium.Then a signal was made. And the crowd exploded back to life.“Play, the Maroon!” they chanted over and over in Arabic, a reference to the nickname of Qatar’s national team. The men linked arms in long lines and jumped up and down. The floor below them shook.The scene was more reminiscent of soccer stadiums in South America and Europe than in Qatar, and the cheering section evoked those of the ultras, a highly organized soccer fan culture with roots in Italy that can be found across the globe, including in North Africa and the Middle East.That was the point. The fans’ noise filled the stadium, as it had five days earlier during Qatar’s opening game against Ecuador. Their numbers conveyed strength. Their relentless energy was infectious. But the body art on many of them gave them away.The tattoos, which are extremely rare and highly frowned upon in Gulf society, seemed to suggest the fans weren’t Qatari. So who were they? And where did they come from?An energetic supporters section has brought life, and noise, to matches played by Qatar.Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesImported SoundThe plan was hatched at the start of 2022, as the World Cup was finally coming into view. Qatar had been besieged by criticism ever since it won the rights to host the World Cup: over a corrupted vote that delivered it, over its treatment of migrant workers, over the ability of the tiny country to host and house more than a million visitors. But in the background was also another common criticism: that the country had no soccer culture.Qatar had never qualified for a World Cup on its merits. The Qatar Stars League is one of the richest in the region, with state-of-the-art air-conditioned stadiums. But the crowds for teams like Al Sadd and Al Rayyan often number in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Who, the organizers wondered, would fill the stadiums when Qatar played? Who would provide the soundtrack?The answer was to tap into the region’s already fertile ultras culture and import it.But that same culture is an unlikely fit with the commercialized reality of Qatar’s World Cup. The code of ultra culture is antagonistic and deeply anti-authority, and in constant conflict with the police and the news media. In the Middle East and North Africa, ultras have been politically influential, too: Egyptian ultras played a key role in the 2011 Arab Spring that toppled Hosni Mubarak as president, and such was their street power and popularity that ultras were barred by one of his successors, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, after he came to power in a coup.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      China Limits Crowd Shots of the World Cup to Avoid ‘Zero-Covid’ Comparisons

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      In Qatar, the maskless fans at the World Cup are joyfully screaming, packed elbow-to-elbow in crowded stadiums, seemingly having a wonderful time.The image presents a direct contrast to China, where continuing “zero-Covid” policies have limited large crowds, forced occasional involuntary lockdowns and ensured consistent mask usage in public. Seeing the freewheeling fun outside the country’s borders had some people on Chinese social media asking: Why not us?As China convulses from a rare outpouring of civil unrest, with protests springing up in major cities across the country against Covid restrictions, social media users and journalists in China have begun to notice they are not seeing the same crowd shots that the rest of the world sees in their broadcasts. In one example captured by Mark Dreyer, the founder of China Sports Insider, a close-up on Croatian fans was replaced on CCTV, China’s state-owned television station, with an image of Canada’s coach.Some people still refusing to see this, so decided to track it. Within a minute, there was this: close-up shots of Canadian and Croatian fans on BBC/international feed, replaced by a solo shot of Canadian coach John Herdman on CCTV. pic.twitter.com/V3DZRjHrzk— Mark Dreyer (@DreyerChina) November 27, 2022
      Similar videos have circulated widely on WeChat, the popular Chinese app, and have been spotted by other journalists.CCTV has long been cautious about live sports broadcasts over which it has no control, said Dreyer, the author of “Sporting Superpower: An Insider’s View on China’s Quest to Be the Best.” In 2004, a brief image of Tiananmen Square from 1989 was shown during the Super Bowl, sinking the N.F.L.’s growth in China and ensuring greater care by television officials in the future, he said.The games are shown on about a 30-second delay in China, giving CCTV officials time to replace close-up shots of screaming fans with other available camera shots, often of coaches or the bench, Dreyer said.The changes are not major. Some crowd shots are still shown, but most are replaced, he said.The growing awareness of the differences through the viral posts on social media has contributed to the growing frustration in China, Dreyer said.“It’s kind of one of those moments where you get a peek around the curtain, and you realize you’re being fed some kind of manipulated narrative,” he said.The growing frustration with Covid restrictions, which has bubbled over into a rare display of antigovernment sentiment after a deadly fire in the Xinjiang region, has been increasingly felt in the sports sector, as most of the rest of the world has moved on with its large-scale events.Sports fans in China have taken note of full stadiums in Britain for the Premier League and packed N.B.A. arenas in the United States and Canada. There was a large backlash on social media after the World Cup’s opening ceremony, Dreyer said.“That’s where people kind of said, well, hang on, how come we’ve got 60-, 70,000 people jumping up and down in close, confined quarters with no masks?” he said. “That’s obviously a stark contrast with what’s going on for the majority of people in China today, where a lot of people are confined to homes, working from home, wearing masks, testing on a daily or near-daily basis. And certainly not going to big sporting events like this.” More

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      Canada has one more game before turning its focus to 2026.

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      AL RAYYAN, Qatar — After the final whistle, after Canada had been eliminated from the 2022 World Cup with a 4-1 loss to Croatia on Sunday, its goalkeeper Milan Borjan stood in the middle of a huddle of his teammates and waved his arms as he spoke. According to the Canada captain Atiba Hutchinson, Borjan reminded his teammates of how far they had come, told that they still possessed talent despite their performance, and encouraged them — four years before Canada co-hosts the next World Cup — that they would keep getting better. Even reaching this far was an accomplishment. Canada toppled the United States and Mexico en route to winning their qualifying group and ending its 36-year World Cup drought. Once in Qatar, Canada showed flashes of its tantalizing potential — it outplayed Belgium in the teams’ opening match but lost, 1-0. But in its loss to Croatia, Canada then showed how far it has to go before it can expect to contend at the highest level.“You’re playing on a world stage, there’s a lot of quality, so there’s things that we’re going to have to learn as a team,” said Hutchinson, 39, who made his 100th international appearance for Canada on Sunday. “We didn’t get the result we wanted but we’ll learn from this and these mistakes that we made and we’ll get better and better, and the next World Cup will be in Canada. We’ve got great players and have more and more coming through the system. We just have to be ready to do what we’ve been doing.”The 2026 World Cup will be jointly hosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico, and in its expansion to 48 teams all three host countries are expected to qualify automatically. But Canada will certainly want to show more than it did in Qatar. With several standouts who are 25 or younger and play in some of the top leagues in the world — Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich in Germany), Jonathan David (Lille in France), Tajon Buchanan (Club Brugge in Belgium) and Stephen Eustáquio (F.C. Porto in Portugal) — that may possible. “I know the future for this team is really bright and there are a lot of lessons in this World Cup,” defender Steven Vitória said. “We’re going to keep working to close gaps against the best teams in the world.”Canada still has one more group stage game left in Qatar, against Morocco on Thursday. It has already done better than its only previous trip to the World Cup — Canada went scoreless and winless in Mexico in 1986 — but that is not good enough for Davies, its best player and the scorer of its only goal in Qatar.“For me, I keep dreaming and keep believing and keep pushing,” Davies said after the loss. More

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      With Recent Loss, Mexico Faces Potential World Cup Elimination

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      Entering the World Cup, there were many questions about the Mexican national team. How good was the squad, really? Was its coach making the right calls? Was this all going to end in bitter disappointment again? Two games into the tournament and the answer feels clear.After a 2-0 loss to Argentina on Saturday night, Mexico sits in last place in its four-team group. Its streak of advancing to the knockout stage in seven straight World Cups is dangerously close to ending. In order to keep it going, Mexico will have to beat Saudi Arabia — by a lot — and pray for some help.“We still have some hope and we have faith and we have to work,” forward Hirving Lozano said in Spanish on Saturday night after the loss to Argentina. “Even if there’s a 1 percent chance, we’ll try.”The biggest problem for Mexico so far this tournament has been what it will need the most on Wednesday against Saudi Arabia: goals. Mexico has scored none. In two games, it has attempted 15 shots. Only five have been on target. Against Argentina, Mexico focused more on defense and control, while hoping to get the ball up the field quickly on transition. While the strategy held Argentina and Lionel Messi scoreless in the first half, it unraveled at times in the second half.“Hurt,” forward Henry Martin said of the team’s mood. “We deserved more. We had a great game, in the first half, they didn’t score. The first goal was the only chance they had.”Asked after the game what message he had for fans who might be angry at the team’s performances at the World Cup, Gerardo Martino, Mexico’s Argentine coach, bristled at the question. He said that he knows his team has struggled with consistently on offense. In its scoreless draw with Poland, he pointed out, Mexico mostly dominated the game but couldn’t quite finish its chances near the goal. Against Argentina, he said Mexico tried a different tactic — and didn’t expect many scoring chances — but failed in its final passes when attacking.As for the fans, Martino said to reporters: “It depends on your view. If you have a view of 60 or 30 minutes? If you tell them about 30 minutes, people will stay mad. If you tell them about 60, probably not as much.”Against Saudi Arabia, Martino suggested, there would be more changes to Mexico’s lineup and tactics, because “we need to score at least three goals” in hopes of advancing. More

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      Cheer, Chant, Clean: Japan Takes Out the Trash, and Others Get the Hint

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      Japanese fans went viral for cleaning up after a World Cup victory. Fans from other countries are following their example.AL RAYYAN, Qatar — The final whistle blew on Sunday afternoon, and the Japanese fans who had just spent hours bouncing under a blistering midday sun allowed themselves a moment to wallow in the disappointment of their team’s 1-0 loss to Costa Rica.But the moment quickly passed, and out came the blue trash bags.In the return of a postgame ritual that is being met with widespread astonishment at this year’s World Cup, a group of Japanese spectators, who only moments earlier had been deliriously singing for their team, began meticulously cleaning the stands at Ahmed bin Ali Stadium, picking up trash scattered across the rows of seats around them.It hardly mattered what it was — half-empty bottles of soda, orange peels, dirty napkins — or who had left it behind. The fans went across the aisles shuffling the litter into bags before handing them to smiling — and clearly delighted — stadium workers on their way out.“It’s a sign of respect for a place,” said Eiji Hattori, 32, a fan from Tokyo, who had a bag of bottles, ticket stubs and other stadium detritus. “This place is not ours, so we should clean up if we use it. And even if it is not our garbage, it’s still dirty, so we should clean it up.”The image of spectators calmly assuming janitorial duties during the World Cup has charmed observers from other countries, like the United States, where slaloming around sticky soda spills, toppled bags of popcorn and mini mountains of peanut shells is often accepted as part of the normal sports stadium experience.But in Japan, tidiness, particularly in public spaces, is widely accepted as a virtue. Japanese people at the game said such habits were taught at home and reinforced at schools, where students from a young age are expected to clean up their classrooms and school facilities on a regular basis.The cleaning of shared areas, like stadiums, becomes something of an individual responsibility, and there are often not armies of workers hired to do it.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      Lionel Messi Saves Argentina’s World Cup

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      LUSAIL, Qatar — As he wrapped Enzo Fernández tightly in his arms, Lionel Messi could not help it. His Argentina teammates were screaming, full pelt, toward them. At their back, the stands were melting into a writhing, bubbling soup of sky blue and white. Messi saw it all and, for the first time in what has felt like a long time, he smiled.For someone who has spent the better part of two decades delivering moments of rare, soaring pleasure to millions of people on a weekly basis, Messi looks happy surprisingly infrequently. He tends, most of the time, toward the serious. He often looks concentrated, or focused, or intent.Occasionally, he might look pensive, ruminative. More regularly than he might have liked, particularly in the last few years, he has had cause to look disappointed, either in himself or, more usually, a teammate. And then, of course, there is Messi in despair: the Messi with the sagging shoulders and the hollow eyes, watching his world crash down around him.Five days ago, that was the Messi who had departed the field at Lusail, his dreams in tatters. Argentina had been beaten by Saudi Arabia, an ignominy that will haunt the country for some time, a shame that will be spoken of only in whispers for years, and its World Cup — his World Cup — hung by a thread.That ghost has been at Argentina’s shoulder all week. In its immediate aftermath, as Argentina’s disconsolate players headed back by bus to their hotel, Messi demanded that his teammates remain united. He promised the fans that they would not be left “stranded” by a squad in which they have placed so much hope.After Enzo Fernandez scored Argentina’s second goal, Messi was the first player to meet him.Juan Mabromata/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe knew, though, that the only way to dispatch ghosts was to confront them. Argentina had no choice but to return to Lusail, to face Mexico, and to manifest a different denouement. Defeat would end its involvement in the World Cup after just two games. Even a tie would leave it on the brink of elimination from a tournament it harbored genuine hopes of winning. Already, it had no margin for error.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      Mexico’s Love-Hate Relationship With Argentina Haunts the Team’s World Cup Matchup

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      When Mexico faces Argentina on Saturday, Mexican fans will bear mixed feelings toward the country that should be their ultimate rival on that night.The reason: the lasting mark Argentine coaches have made on Mexican soccer.Many Mexicans credit the Argentine coach Cesar Luis Menotti with revolutionizing Mexican soccer by elevating playing style over strength during his run leading the national team in the 1990s. Even though he stayed less than two years and never coached Mexico in a World Cup, he remains a beloved figure there, even as he now serves as the director of Argentina’s national teams.On his first day in Mexico, Menotti, who had led Argentina to the World Cup title in 1978, told reporters that he planned to probe deep into Mexico’s soul “because the only way you can lead a national team is by understanding how it is inextricably linked to the country’s inner life.”With flowing hair and bushy sideburns, Menotti smoked cigarettes on the sidelines, wore sharp suits, freely quoted literature and brought up politics, an unusual brew for conservative Mexico at the time. During his last interview as Mexico’s coach, he said he now “understood Mexico better than many Mexicans.”Since then, there have been two full time Argentine coaches of the Mexican national team (more than any other non-Mexican nationality). Neither has enjoyed the reverence shown for Menotti.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      Saudi Commuters Descend on Doha for an In-and-Out World Cup

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      A victory over Argentina inspired a kingdom’s soccer fans. And when Qatar is just a short flight, you go.DOHA, Qatar — Planes were landing, from all around the world, every few minutes. They came from London and Tokyo, Hong Kong and São Paulo. There would be about 300 scheduled passenger flights landing at Hamad International Airport on Saturday.But among them were dozens of planes that had not come far, sometimes just a few hundred miles from the west and after barely reaching cruising altitude. They came from Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s next-door neighbor, and they carried excited people in green jerseys and with no bags to check.These World Cup commuters would not stay long. Kickoff was at 4 p.m. They would wake up back home on Sunday, a work day, in their own beds.They were soccer fans, and they carried only what they needed: banners, flags and a passport. And they brought a renewed sense of collective expectation as they arrived to cheer Saudi Arabia, the unlikely darling of the tournament, if not the entire Middle East.Beating Argentina will do that. Every game, now, is bigger than the last. After losing to Poland, 2-0, the next, against Mexico on Wednesday, will decide if Saudi Arabia reaches the round of 16. That hope will generate another day like this one.By midmorning, the airport in Doha was spilling out bursts of green. Among them were the brothers Faris and Salman al-Hassan, fresh off a short flight from Riyadh and wearing green jerseys and scarves.They could have come by car, they said — Doha is about six hours from Riyadh — but Qatar, nervous about car traffic, disincentivized that idea for the World Cup. It created a temporary toll of 5,000 Saudi riyal (about $1,330) for those driving across the border during the tournament.An alternative was to park at the border and hop on a bus at the Abu Samra, Qatar, checkpoint, as thousands of others had done over the past week. The no-frills bus ride is little more than an hour, but the bus is not the hard part: Abu Samra is hours from any major Saudi city.So the choice was made by thousands: Commute by air.Get in. Cheer. Get out.“We will go straight to the stadium and come right back,” Salman al-Hassan said.About 20 flights arrived in Doha from Saudi Arabian cities between dawn and 1 p.m. on Saturday, timed just for the afternoon kickoff.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More