IT’S WEDNESDAY night, and at the Aspire Academy, about 10 kilometres north of the city centre, Qatar’s national team are holding an open training session ahead of the start of their home World Cup campaign.
Inside the entrance to the team’s base is a wall plastered with quotes from football’s great and good, from Pele, Neymar and — obviously — David Beckham. Alongside, is the team’s mantra, “Honour. Loyalty. Respect. Victory.” written out in both Arabic and English.
Outside, the facilities are exemplary, almost unreal. The green hues under floodlights, the pristine and hitherto untouched equipment, the Augusta-style banks sloping around the training pitch all coming together to create a picture more like a video game than reality. Australia and Ghana also have their training bases at the Academy, and it is not difficult to see why.
Notably, though, there is hardly anyone here. A couple of camera crews, a handful of international journalists keen to discover more about a team that is the biggest unknown quantity at the tournament, but, seemingly, no one from the local media. Four days out from the start of a home World Cup, it is a bizarrely calm, subdued scene.
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