The sufferers of this World Cup owe him our memory and our long-term vigilance, even when football takes center stage.
And now, finally, some football. For much of the 12 years since Sepp Blatter’s groping hands smashed an envelope containing a word and a thousand questions, the 2022 World Cup would possibly have existed in our minds as little more than a surreal abstraction. A simulation generated by computadora. la infused vision of Philip K. Dick of a long-term that might never come true; It can also have been avoided one way or another if we made the right choices. But the time for having a chimera and denial is over. It’s happening. Matty Cash is moving to Qatar, and to a greater or lesser extent, we all pass with him.
What for?How?Why here?Why now? And, frankly, what is it? Some of the maximum intelligible answers to a commission that, from its disgusting and cynical beginnings, has like a giant step towards a sunburned stranger. This is not the first World Cup that is positioned in the shadow of totalitarianism. It is not the first to be granted under dubious premises, nor the first to be built at ruinous cost to the public treasury and the planet. But in many other ways, it’s unlike anything this game has noticed before.
Of course, you didn’t decide on that. Neither the players nor the coaches. A Winter World Cup in a small desert state with no football heritage and a litany of human rights abuses in its squad was imposed on us through the 22 men on FIFA’s executive committee, 3 of whom are now dead. Perhaps there is a dark and sure irony in the fact that the survival rate of the other people who awarded the World Cup was even lower than that of the other people who built it. He has resided in this sport. Of course, you are welcome to introduce yourself, join and enjoy. But this exhibition is not yours and never has been.
So perhaps the first thing we can do is detach ourselves from the concept that everything that happens on the court during the next month can redeem or mitigate its colossal ethical expenses. Football likes to weave that egocentric thread over itself: the concept that, whether through noble escape, shared joy or athletic beauty, serves to make the world a better place. But in this case of Qatar 2022, football has made the world noticeably worse. It literally killed people. How you feel about it is entirely up to you. But the least we owe to the victims of this World Cup is our long-term memory and vigilance.
It’s a World Cup like no other. For more than 12 years, The Guardian has reported on Qatar 2022 issues, from corruption and human rights abuses to redress for migrant staff and discriminatory laws. The most productive of our journalism is piled up on our engaged Qatar homepage: Beyond Football for those who wish to go beyond the pitch.
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Almost inevitably, very little of this human waste will be exhibited in itself. Those of you who watch TV will find pretty much the same organized, starry, heavily marked, tournament-flavored substance you know and love. For those involved, Qatar will be experienced in the same way as anywhere else: through the windows of a bus, on a family treadmill from the hotel room to the conversion room, swimming pool and education camp, through the soothing and stateless smell of new paint on transient plasterboard. Heat can be a factor. Lack of atmosphere can be a factor. Fatigue and reduced preparation time will be a factor. So what kind of tournament can we expect?
The temptation is to focus on the stars, to weigh our research into familiar names. Kylian Mbappé and Robert Lewandowski, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin De Bruyne and Vinícius Júnior, Sadio Mané and Gareth Bale. Play in this tournament, especially in the later stages where the margins are the best.
But in general, it’s cohesive groups rather than giant sets of players, or even wonderful coaches, that tend to go deeper into World Cups: groups with an explained taste for the game, a collective understanding and a sense of their own drive. Remember that a ruthlessly pierced Russia and a loose Brazil did just as well at the last World Cup; Let’s also not forget that Croatia did better than either of them. The quality of the stars can increase the expectation and make you go over the line. But this alone is never enough.
Perhaps the greatest attractive difference that can be made is between groups with a distinct identity based on ownership and superior pressure, and those who, in difficult times, turn to the classics of counter-attacking tournaments, set pieces and individual inspiration. first group: the mercurial Germany of Hansi Flick, the gold-gold but largely green Brazil, the exciting Spain of Luis Enrique, the last breaths of a wonderful Belgian team and Holland under the idiosyncratic tutelage of Louis van Gaal.
In this last group: Argentina calmly imagined, France protecting the champions, Portugal talented but restricted and a lame England that is ripe for some other episode of ombliguista anxiety that culminates in an early exit. By the way, neither technique is objectively better than the other. Pragmatism worked for Portugal in 2016 and France in 2018, for Argentina at last year’s Copa America and for Senegal at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations. The ideology triumphed for Germany in 2014, for Brazil in 2019 and Italy in 2021. More In the pecking order, the applicable hole is between more explosive and direct groups like Canada and Ecuador, or groups like Iran and Costa Rica, which will simply come down and look to limit the damage.
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Wales go into their first World Cup in 64 years with high hopes of sparking the odds again, even if their deep formula proves to invite pressure. Poland, which boasts one of the world’s biggest strikers and one of Aston Villa’s full-backs, has a favourable organisation as they try to succeed in the knockout stages for the first time since 1986. Switzerland and Serbia would be very popular if they were not unhappy. Enough to be in the same organization as Brazil.
However, the biggest unknown is about the hosts. The Qatari team is fully founded in the country and has not played competitively for a year. But they are the most productive of all the groups this winter, and what they lack in raw talent. , they will compensate for it in nationalist organization and zeal. They can simply create a surprise.
In short: we just don’t know. No World Cup has taken a position in those circumstances, halfway through a European domestic season, with a high number of injuries (N’Golo Kanté, Paul Pogba, Diogo Jota, Son Heung-min and Paulo Dybala are among those who are doubtful or doubtful). and groups that have spent little time in combination for months.
Perhaps anger is the right reaction here: anger at a lack of compassion or foresight, anger at how tough men have just put together this ruinous tournament for it to exist. But also, this is also irresistibly pleasurable. Football starts and everything else stops. There will be convulsions, there will be greatness, there will be heartbreak and there will be triumphs. To celebrate such things is not to tolerate them; That’s all there is. A non-alcoholic toast, then, to Qatar 2022, and the strangest and most terrible smart moment that ever existed.