Doha: The Qatari national football team will play two important friendlies against Canada and Chile next Friday and Tuesday as part of its preparations for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
The two matches will be held in Austria during the camp held there since last July, in preparation to face Ecuador in the opening match on November 20 at Al Bayt Stadium.
The matches, being played during the FIFA calendar September break, are the first for the team since the friendly matches against Bulgaria and Slovenia in Doha on March 26 and 29.
The two games are real tests of the progress of the team's preparation, which started in early June after the decision of the Qatar Football Association (QFA) to exempt the international players from participating in the Qatar League (QNB Stars League). The team had also played many unofficial matches outside the framework of FIFA's international windows during which local leagues are suspended.
The Qatari national team lost 3-0 to the Croatian national team on Tuesday in an unofficial match.
With the match coming before the start of the international break—September 19 to 27, the Croatian national team used some U-23 players, while Qatar's head coach, Felix Sanchez, featured as many players as possible, without relying on a specific squad of key players, in light of the narrow time interval before the matches against Canada and then Chile on Friday and Tuesday.
The Qatari team is scheduled to return to Doha after the Chile match on September 27. The players will then take a short break for three days before resuming training in a short indoor camp for five days, during which the team will engage in several training sessions, including an open one on October 2.
