Doha, October 21 (QNA) – The four Arab football teams participating in FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will have an opportunity to rewrite the history of Arab participations in the tournament, when they compete in the first World Cup held in the Arab world.
Doha won’t give a home team advantage to the Qatari national team only, but also to the national teams of Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Morocco. Those three teams will feel they have a home-team advantage thanks to the substantial support they will get in the tournament from Arab fans. The hope is that support along with each team’s performance can propel at least one of them to the knockout stages. Only Morocco in 1986, Saudi Arabia in 1994, and Algeria in 2014 have done so.
The official reports issued by FIFA on tickets sales reflect fans anticipation of seeing Arab teams feature in the World Cup. FIFA Chief Operating Officer Colin Smith said during a press conference held in Doha last week that the State of Qatar topped the list of the top-10 countries in terms of ticket sales. Saudi Arabia came in third place. FIFA said it sold more than 2.89 million tickets, as of the date of the press conference.
Qatar national football team is counting on the fans when they make their first appearance in the history of the competition. The hope is the team can go beyond the group stage and perform superbly throughout the competition. Qatar’s matches are likely to break record fan attendance set in the FIFA Arab Cup Qatar 2021.
Qatar national football team is fully prepared to meet all the expectations after they set in place a good programme to prepare for the competition. They took part in the 2019 Copa America, 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup, as well as the teams considerable participation in 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification in Europe, albeit without factoring-in their results as part of the final tally. The team also played several friendlies that are likely to help players gain the necessary experience ahead of their opening match against Ecuador on Nov. 20 as part of Group A that also includes the Netherlands and Senegal.
For their part, Saudi Arabia national football team will hope for an exceptional showing at the competition played in Qatar. They are likely to see strong support thanks to the ease of travel for neighboring Saudi fans. The team will hope to pose a threat to their three competitors in group C, Argentina, Mexico and Poland. Saudi Arabia national football team will depend on support from the fans to go further than they did in the 1994 World Cup in the US when they reached the last-16.
Their three group-stage matches are all sold-out. Saudi Arabia will first play Argentina on Nov. 22 at Lusail Stadium, then Poland on Nov. 26 at Education City Stadium, and then against Mexico on Nov. 30 At Lusail Stadium.
It is also anticipated that the Tunisian and Moroccan football teams will receive a big support during the tournament, whether from the fans who will come from the two countries, or from the communities residing in the State of Qatar and the neighboring countries. Perhaps the experience of FIFA Arab Cup Qatar 2021 confirms that the two football teams will receive a considerable crowd support that push them to achieve the aspirations, since Morocco national football team has been looking for a second qualification to the second round since 1986, despite the top-ranked teams of group F where the football teams of Belgium, Croatia and Canada are included, while Tunisia national football team could achieve his ambition in this tournament to make the first achievement by being qualified for the second round through group D that includes France, Australia and Denmark.
The level of Arab participation in the coming version of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 equals the record registered by the four representatives in 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, while the difference is seemingly considerable in the new appearance, not only at the anticipated fans level, but through the atmosphere of experience the Arab footballers had acquired, which will help them present exceptional levels to rectify their disappointing participation in the last tournament version after they had been knocked out from the group stage.
The history of the Arab presence in the tournament registers the highest record of participations for the national football teams of Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia six times, by considering that the tournament had started in the first version of 1930 FIFA World Cup Uruguay with the participation of 13 football teams, before the number is increased until it reached 32 teams in 1998 FIFA World Cup France’s version, which means that the increase was being raised every time from the luckiness of the Arab presence due to the limited seats for each continent.
The Arab participation was swinging between one team such as Egypt in 1934, Morocco in 1970, Tunisia in 1978 and Algeria in 2010 and 2014, while two teams had participated in 1982 FIFA World Cup Spain (Kuwait and Algeria), Saudi Arabia and Tunisia in 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, and three teams in 1986 FIFA World Cup Mexico (Morocco, Algeria and Iraq), three teams in 1998 FIFA World Cup France (Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia) then four teams participated in 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia).
Tunisian team was the first Arab team to win a World Cup match during the FIFA World Cup Argentina 1978 against Mexico with a score of (1-3), while Algeria and Saudi Arabia are the teams with the most trophies (3), Saudi Arabia has lost the most (11) followed by Morocco and Tunisia (9).
Saudi Arabia and Morocco are the most competitors (16), Tunisia (15) and Algeria (13), while Morocco scored the most (14), compared to 13 for Algeria and Tunisia, and the Saudi team received the most goals (39), Tunisia (25) goals and Morocco (22).
Algeria has the best scoring rate (13 goals in 13 matches), and the largest successive qualification series was for Saudi Arabia between 1994 and 2006, while the longest absence for Egypt was between the 1934 and 1990 versions.
Algeria remained the first Arab and African football team that scores four goals in one match after it had beaten South Korea with a score (4-2) in 2014 and was the most goal scorer in one version (7) in 2014, while Morocco had the biggest difference when it won against Scotland (3-0) in 1998, and Saudi Arabia had the worst loss against Germany (0-8) in 2002.
The past world cup versions saw three Arab matches, where Saudi Arabia was part of them, and won the first match against Morocco (2-1) in 1994 and draw with Tunisia in 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany’s version (2-2) and faced the Egypt national football team in 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia and won over Egypt (2-1). (QNA)