KHALIFA INTERNATIONAL STADIUM — This is a World Cup in name but everything about it is so different from what went before.
Picking up an England ticket, for starters. At last summer’s Euros they were gold dust, the preserve of those with Three Lions loyalty points or the fastest of fingers to beat the web queues and make it into Wembley.
Not so in the Doha sun, where England supporters were comfortably outnumbered by the enthusiastic Iranian army of Team Melli loyalists inside the Khalifa International.
We had been warned that there would be empty seats among England’s allocation and in the stadium of less than 40,000 it was unmistakeable that only the hardcore have made the trip. Even the last minute tickets still selling on the Fifa app – 800 riyals a pop, around £180 – hadn’t quite shifted.
Those that have made the journey won’t recognise the experience much. All World Cups have to accommodate corporate sponsors prominently but the dial has been turned up to 11 here, with local supporters milling around three gleaming Kias parked at a huge makeshift car lot assembled in the perimeter of the stadium.
With not much natural atmosphere, DJs have deployed near the entrances with booming sound systems, ostensibly to whip fans into a frenzy. But with no booze – fridges meant for Budweiser lay bare – there weren’t many stopping to dance.
Still, after the surreal opening night this at least had the hallmarks of a proper football atmosphere once you got inside. There was nothing confected about the enthusiasm of the England supporters dotted around the ground for their young, freewheeling team and Iran’s colourful support reflected their own rich terrace heritage. Their support stuck with the team long after the cause was lost, in stark contrast to the hosts on opening night.
By the end it even felt like a bona fide World Cup game and you do wonder whether the higher stakes contests might bring out the best of this most unusual of tournaments.
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It was not without incident though. Twenty minutes before kick off, huge swathes of empty seats remained and it became obvious something larger was brewing.
Fifa had recommended a mobile ticketing app to smooth the process of getting into this vast set of stadiums constructed in the desert but several hundred fans were caught outside the stadium while their QR codes disappeared.
Panic started to set in as kick-off approached with issues not resolved. Given the near disaster that unfolded at the Champions League in Paris earlier this year, there was understandable concern as crowds began to swell. Some fans reported that they were let through without codes in the end, only to be met with further resistance at the ticket gates. It was a mess.
Quick thinking by the FA and Football Supporters’ Association, working in their Free Lions capacity on the ground in Doha, helped broker a speedy resolution but it was another black eye for a tournament that, despite being 12 years in the making, still feels mired in last minute issues.
It is certainly a feature of this tournament that there are vast swathes of officials, security, police and volunteers who have been deployed to ensure it goes smoothly. Despite this it is blindingly obvious that the country is not used to hosting events of this magnitude. There is, after all, only so much you can stress test in a country with a population of less than 3 million.
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