Being born and raised in Qatar in a family obsessed with sports has allowed Matthias Krug to see first-hand how rapidly the nation’s sports and football landscape has developed over the years.
But whenever Krug travelled around the world, he was surprised that people knew very little about Qatar’s fascinating and ever-developing sports history. This prompt him to write the book ‘Journeys on a Football Carpet.
“I was inspired to write this book, not only to relate some of my family’s personal experiences, but to document the experiences of a nation and the inspiring people who helped to shape those journeys on the sporting fields,” Krug told Doha Today.
Krug is an author and journalist who was born and raised in Qatar. Over the past 16 years he has written extensively about football, society, politics and culture for some of the biggest publications around the world, including the BBC, CNN, ESPN, The Huffington Post, the Irish Examiner, Al Jazeera English, FourFourTwo, El Pais, Art Monthly Australia and many others.
“Qatar surprised the world by winning the right to stage the FIFA World Cup, but critics were quick to claim that the country has no sporting history. I found all these fascinating football stories that I wanted to help tell for the first time, and developed this book which tells the story of a young country that dared to dream big on the sporting stage,” said Krug.
“It is essentially a book about believing in your dreams, and having the vision and the dedication and hard work to make them come true,” he added.
According to Krug, the book is a must-read for football and sports fans in Qatar and around the world.
“I hope that, even in a small way, this book will contribute to greater understanding around the world about what Qatar has achieved in its sporting history and give people more insight – because you need to understand the past to draw lessons about the present and the future,” he said.
Speaking about how Qatar is moving towards 2022, Krug says that it’s a very exciting time for Qatar in sporting terms, with recently concluded tournaments such as the Gulf Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup, and with the nation’s footballers having won the 2019 Asian Cup in such a spectacular style.
“I actually had to write an additional chapter in the book because of Qatar’s Asian Cup victory, and I had to be stopped from writing more because there are always new things happening and a new success story or a major event to write about,” he added.
Krug shares the sentiment of many others about the World Cup in 2022 and said that Qatar will continue to surprise the world, both on and off the pitch, in the build-up to the World Cup in 2022, and at the tournament itself.
“Sometimes I get goose bumps thinking about November 21, 2022, when Qatar’s footballers play in the opening game of the FIFA World Cup, the whole nation gets behind the team, and the world comes to Qatar,” he said.
Journeys on a Football Carpet’has received an overwhelmingly positive response from readers, in the two months since it was launched at book at Qatar National Library by HBKU Press.
