Qatar aim to avoid embarrassment after 12 long years preparing for World Cup
The Doha-born captain Hassan Al-Haydos is, with 169 appearances, Qatar’s most-capped player and third only to Cristiano Ronaldo and Andres Guardado among all players in the tournament. McGuinness added: “He has a great eye for a killer pass. He is calm on the ball and dangerous in the final third. He will play mostly off the right-hand side but he is versatile.”
The striker Almoez Ali, who was born in Sudan but raised in Qatar, is their joint record scorer with 42 goals, and McGuinness feels he has the pace and directness to be a threat. “While not the most technical, he is effective and has a very good goals-to-games ratio for the national team,” he said.
He will spearhead the team in coach Felix Sanchez’s formation: 3-5-2 with the ball, 5-3-2 without it. “These styles of play have been coached into the group for years,” McGuinness said. “Qatar like to have the added protection across the back centrally with extra numbers, and this then allows them to utilise the wing backs who are a key element to their style of play when they are counter-attacking.”
Qatar’s hopes of navigating a tricky group rest largely on forward Akram Afif
His concern is whether Sanchez’s high-pressing tactics could backfire against teams of the calibre of Senegal and the Netherlands. “Qatar have been good at capitalising on that over the years, but as you increase the quality of opposition they run a real risk of being exposed if they over-commit,” he said.
Sanchez, a former Barcelona youth coach, is another import who has had staying power. He moved to Qatar in 2006 and McGuinness, now director of player recruitment at Major League Soccer side Columbus Crew, said: “Felix has been embedded in Qatari culture for years working with the squad. He has built a strong cultural unit with the national team and has given players trust to grow in his system. He will know the squad limitations but also how to make them tick as this group has been together for a long time.
“Felix is a quiet guy on the outside but focused and ambitious on the inside. This is his biggest test yet as national team coach and the culmination of the project they have been building towards for so long.”
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The on-field aim will be respectability. Qatar’s most winnable match comes first. “The best scenario I can see is them maybe getting something from the Ecuador game,” McGuinness added. “Overall they will not look out of place but, given the quality of the opponent, I don’t see them progressing into the knockout stages.”
That feels logical, as Qatar’s world ranking peaked at 42nd last year and they have still never qualified for a World Cup. But the class of 2022 should fare better on the global stage than the team of 2010 would have done.
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