Just how good is the Qatar national team

Qatar is set to host its first ever World Cup. But despite being the host nation, they’ve never competed at the tournament before. There’s lots of speculation as to whether they will be able to compete at this level. So, just how good is the Qatar national team?

Well, if we go off the FIFA world rankings, not bad. The hosts of the 2022 World Cup are currently ranked 50^th in the world. This puts them ahead of both Ghana and Saudi Arabia, who will also be competing at the tournament.

Qatar’s national team are also current Asian Cup champions having beaten Japan 3-1 in 2019.

However, back when Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup in 2010, their national team was a mess. They were ranked 113^th in the world and had never qualified for a World Cup before.

Martin Lowe, who writes for the Asian game said, ‘The national team and the nation as a whole, it (football) was very much on the side-lines of even thinking the sport was a priority for the nation.’

‘They’ve never really broken through that glass-ceiling of the top five or 6 teams in Asia and they’ve never been that close to World Cup qualification.’

So how have they got to the position they are in now?

Aspire Academy

A lot of their recent success has to do with the Aspire Academy.

The Aspire Academy was set up in 2004 with the goal of scouting and developing aspiring Qatari athletes.

Whilst it’s not solely focused on football, a huge portion of the academy is designed to help the development of the beautiful game in Qatar. The Aspire Academy has had $1.4 billion pumped into developing both Qatar’s youth and first team’s.

Lowe says ‘it’s been integral to try and get that professionalism across the place. But we also have to accept that Qatar hasn’t got raw equality and raw products other nations will have.’

‘So, they’ve kind of got to make the best of what they’ve got. What they’ve got is resource in terms of cash and money and they’ve got the best facilities in the Aspire Academy.’

To start with, Qatar focused a lot on bringing over international players and nationalising them into the first team. However, as Lowe goes on to say ‘they ran into a lot of difficulties with FIFA. They were trying to abuse the system, filling most of their team with players that had played in the Qatar stars League that had only been there for a couple of months.’

With this strategy in mind, they aimed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia so that they felt they would be in a strong position before they hosted the event.

In spite of this they failed miserably, finishing rock bottom of their qualifying group.

Lowe goes on to say, ‘that really sprung to mind within the QFA to understand what are we going to do for 2022?’

‘Instead, they focused on the second element of things, which was the youth system.’

The importance of Felix Sanchez and his style of play

This also brought about the appointment of Felix Sanchez as manager in 2017. Sanchez had been a manager of Qatar’s U19 and U23 team before taking over the senior role.

Lowe says ‘Felix Sanchez through that period has been a mentor to these young players. A couple of the key players within this team he’s nurtured through from 13-year-olds upwards.’

Before Felix Sanchez joined the Qatar youth set up, he was a part of the Barcelona academy. This was key for the QFA as they idolised Spanish footballing ideologies and that tiki-taka style of play.

As mentioned before, this brought about triumph at the 2019 Asian Cup.

Nonetheless, playing a tiki-taka style of football against nations with a better quality of players at the World Cup would be naïve.

Lowe says, ‘in the last year or so when results have started to wain a little bit, they’ve reverted back to a more defensive looking unit and probably will go into the World Cup now, having being used to play a 4-3-3 formation, going into a 5-3-2 formation.’

Star players

Whilst on paper Qatar look the weakest of the four teams in their group, they do have a couple of star players. One being Almonez Ali. The Al-Duhail striker currently has 41 goals in 84 appearances.

Lowe says ‘he thrives off competitive international football. At club level, he probably doesn’t stand out at in terms of being an adequate finisher. He’s quite tall, lanky and quite skinny. But has this ability to score goals at big events.’

‘He’s partnered with a more stereotypical star man in terms of Akram Afif, who if it wasn’t for the World Cup, would be playing in Europe.’

‘He’s a lot more technical, he’s quick, he’s fast, he’s quite creative and I think he’s going to be the one that stands out for sure.’

How far are the Qatar national team expected to go

Whilst Qatar do have a couple of players to look out for, they are odds on to finish bottom of their group.

‘In terms of form, no one of the Qatari team have played club football since June because the QFA decided to take all of them away and put them in a national team camp for six ahead of the World cup.’

‘The fact they’ve got Ecuador first where there are potentially question marks about them being new. Senegal again, past a couple of the players who are obviously world beaters have they got it within them.’

‘I think there is a possibility of them doing a Russia as they were four years ago.’

Qatar have clearly developed as a national side from when they awarded the World Cup back in 2010. The Aspire Academy has been vital in this progress and whilst they have brought other internationals over to play in their national side, the development of their youth system is clear to see. Whether this will be enough to compete at the tournament, time will tell.