I’m starting to get a little bit into it. Be interesting to see if the England game tomorrow really takes off, as 7pm on a Friday seems pretty ideal.
And I’m sure the people who have gone are having a perfectly good time. Probably less boozy than other tournaments, but it’s pretty hard to have an outright BAD time at international tournaments, just cos it’s a big festival of football and there’s so many other people there for the same reason. And I do like the idea that it’s a more accessible WC for parts of the World, which will create its own interesting atmosphere.
It shouldn’t have ever been awarded to Qatar, but in terms of things going calamitously wrong, they’ve said that about most tournaments… Brazil and South Africa were both supposed to be critically unprepared, Poland & Ukraine was supposed to be horrifically dangerous (Sol Campbell talking about coming back in body bags etc) but all ended up being good fun on ground level.
The issues for me were having it mid season, near Christmas and around several key personal birthday/anniversary dates that made it less practical, and the fact that I just have no interest in Qatar as a place. Like Dubai, those kind of purpose built desert tourist traps for rich people seem like the most boring cultureless places to me. Plus one of biggest issues with Qatar was that all the migrant deaths were a direct consequence of their corrupt bid, as they needed to build all this brand new infrastructure in such a small and unsuitable place immediately… If it had been in, say, Saudi Arabia - somewhere with very similar, often worse human rights abuses, but a better football infrastructure, heritage and culture - I would’ve been more tempted to go I think.