Khalid Al Shaibei
I’m a 13-year-old Qatari, and here are my thoughts on the World Cup 2022. For most of my life, I have had the great pleasure of watching everything unfold here at home, from the events leading up to the World Cup to the innovation going on in the small Peninsula with enormous power on the world stage. With hosting of World Cup, it’s crazy to think how much Qatar has developed in the short 12 years that they were given to prepare. Qatar built everything from stadiums to infrastructure.
Some time ago, Qatar had an important decision to make. As a small country in the Middle East, it had a critical action ahead of them. The authorities needed a way to attract tourists and cement more power, and they found that in the world of sports. From here on out, Qatar had bid on every major sporting event, from the World Cup to the Olympics. They funded the well-known Aspire Academy to develop skills and further enhance athletes.
The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. It hosts the most prominent players from around the world to compete in the most competitive and widespread sport - football. To have the World Cup in Qatar is a dream that comes once in a lifetime, and I’m genuinely excited for it being hosted here in Qatar. Having the best players from all around the world here in one country playing in our stadiums, competing for the grand prize to crown their stellar careers, is a fantastic feeling, mainly because this is the last World Cup for many of the world’s elite football players such as Messi, Neymar, and Ronaldo.
People pose for photos at the Corniche as Doha’s skyline is seen in the background in Doha yesterday. (AFP)
More than just hosting this year’s World Cup, Qatar also has its national team played in the tournament for the first time. Qatar’s national football team was never a popular nor successful team, at one point placing 112th in FIFA’s world rankings to today’s 50th place that Qatar proudly holds.
How is that possible, such a huge success in such a short period? Such an answer comes with a simple answer. When Qatar announced its World Cup bid in 2010, it had an underachieving non-excellent football team. So what did they do? They decided to establish one of the world’s biggest and most developed football academies - Aspire Academy. The Qatari government puts hundreds of millions of dollars into training and developing the world’s finest young stars.
What a success that turned out to be. In the 2019 Asian Cup, a fully Aspire-developed team competed and won the tournament with excellence and ease conceding only one goal throughout the tournament. That Qatari team won the best player, top scorer, top assister, and best goalkeeper award, smashing all competition.
As Qatar is hosting 2022 FIFA World Cup, it’s safe to say that the country is ready to display the most outstanding World Cup the world has ever seen. I hope to grow up one day and tell my kids and grand-kids about this time in my life. And I can’t wait to see what other progress and accomplishments lay in store for Qatar’s future. See you in another outstanding achievement of the State of Qatar.
