Tuesday, November 29, 2022

World Cup Upsets

The Word Cup has been full of upset matches this week beginning with Saudi Arabia beating Argentina and then Japan winning over Germany. Lots of ties too. 

But the biggest upsets was with the fans and players towards the mullahs of Qatar and their bigotry. Their security people were keeping fans from entering the stadiums if they had any kind of rainbow on their person. They were also removing fans from the stands if they took off their shirts or if a woman showed too much skin which to them was a shoulder. 

Of course there has been the ongoing controversies of human rights abuses and bribery. Also there has been the controversy of holding the games in the winter during the regular seasons of FIFA around the world. Part of the bribery was to reschedule the games when it wasn't too hot in Qatar. The games have always been held in the summer at the end of the regular FIFA season so that players on the national teams didn't impact their regular league games. Not so this year. Bribery.

Then there is the lack of alcohol being sold during the games except to the very rich in the VVVIP seats. During the opening game between Qatar and Ecuador there were numerous chants throughout the game from the fans... "We want beer". That would be a favorite fan chant all week. I was glad to see Qatar lose that game and actually every time they played. They made the quickest exit from the tournament of a host team in the history of the World Cup. Good riddance too. 

Qatar was the first host nation in the history of the tournament with no historical background in football. None whatsoever. The Qatari team they put on the field had no Qatari nationals. They were all hired and not very good. When Qatar got the World Cup scheduled in their country by bribery they also bought a team and actually set up a little league about ten years ago. They didn't learn very much about soccer in that time.

The image posted here is not an official Qatari publication but it certainly could have been if they weren't so damn focused on public relations although they haven't been doing a very good job of it but there is still a lot of time left in the World Cup.


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