Saudi Arabia’s eye-catching shock defeat of Argentina in the first round of matches could not eclipse the fact that Qatar 22 is on track to break the record number of goalless draws — there have been four so far and we are barely two-thirds of the way through the group stage. Photo: Supplied
SPORT BLOG
Remember that amusing aphorism about ice hockey? “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.” That’s how the Fifa World Cup in Qatar is beginning to feel.
Despite the host nation’s doubling down on their discriminatory laws against gay people in the face of better-late-than-never global outrage and buyer’s regret over the choice of the Middle Eastern oil powerhouse in the first place, with its jarring juxtaposition to the annual climate change negotiations at COP27 just across the desert in Egypt, massive air conditioners keeping stadiums built on the blood of poorly paid and treated migrant workers, to the point where journalists and fans have been arrested or hassled for wearing the LGBT+ colours and the resulting will-he-won’t-he? saga of whether England Captain Harry Kane would wear a “one love” armband — he didn’t, as the English Football Association meekly backed down ahead of a match against Iran in which the pampered and over-paid Englishmen faced an Iranian team who by declining sing their national team and by virtue of their captain’s defiant press conference in which he spoke out against human rights’ abuses back at home — to the same uncertainty clouding the pre-match coverage of Germany’s first game of the tournament and questions over how Germany captain Manuel Neuer would handle the situation — answer: admirably, as his team opted to wear rainbow-coloured boots and to defiantly cover their mouths with their hands in the team photo just prior to the start of the game, prompting a culture war in the Arabian Peninsula and a dismally shallow and trite global conversation about whether football and politics should mix, at a World Cup where real football fans appears to be in short supply and largely outnumbered by those of the fake, bussed-in-for-the-purpose variety, despite all of this, and more, a football tournament has broken out.
Just. But only just.
Japan beat Germany with a stirring second half performance, but then yesterday inexplicably lost to Costa Rica, who had been hammered 7-0 just a few days before by Spain, who then last night struggled to draw with a mediocre German team.
Saudi Arabia’s eye-catching shock defeat of Argentina in the first round of matches could not eclipse the fact that Qatar 22 is on track to break the record number of goalless draws — there have been four so far and we are barely two-thirds of the way through the group stage.
Having emerged blinking and hesitatingly into the bright Arabian desert light, the football now has to decide whether it can provide enough diverting drama to save Qatar 22 from ignominy and from winning the prize for the worst and as well as the most grotesquely inappropriate Fifa World Cup of all time.
What will that take? A whole lot more. Great World Cups are defined by great matches, great teams and great individual players — especially the latter.
This one seems perilously short of all three at the moment. The curiosity and surprise of a big team losing or even failing to get through to the knock-out stages is not nearly enough to cross the threshold.
So far, there have been very few fine goals, let alone stirring games.
But it is not too late for something more exhilarating to happen. Lionel Messi’s extraordinary goal against Mexico — the overhead drone footage of the goal reveals just how good it was — was breath-taking, suggesting that this, finally, may be the tournament where he does justice to his unique generational talent.
The Brazilians look very good, but not brilliant — not, at least, by the standards of their great teams of the past: Sweden 1958, Mexico 1970, South Korea 2002. There is no Roberto Carlos or Socrates or Bobeto, let alone a Pele.
The French team look “merely competent”; which may be enough for them to keep the trophy.
No cheeky little upstart team has yet suggested that it can break the hold of the big five — Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Italy, who between them have won 15 of the 21 World Cups.
If there cannot be brilliance, then there must at least be romance. But Qatar 22 feels anything but romantic — more like a Florida holiday camp than Venice; tacky wealth rather than elegance and art.
I suspect one friend’s observation captured the mood among politically progressive football fans around the world. “I switch on the television to watch a game and immediately feel guilty,” he remarked. I know how he feels.
It shouldn’t feel like this. But it does. Either football will raise its game to extraordinary heights to enable us to transcend all the nonsense, with the drama eclipsing our ambivalence and guilt, or we will continue to squirm uncomfortably in our living room seats.