DOHA, QATAR
There are no major surprises in hosts Qatar’s 26-man squad announced with manager Felix Sanchez keeping his faith in his tried and tested men for their maiden FIFA World Cup.
Abdelrahman Mustafa is the only omission from the 27-member squad announced last month by Sanchez for the final phase of preparations in Marbella, Spain. Qatar's all-time top scorer Almoez Ali and Akram Afif will lead the attack for the World Cup hosts, who open their campaign in Group A with a match against Ecuador on November 20 at the Al Bayt Stadium, which will also kick off the month-long tournament contested by 32 countries. Ali has 42 goals in 85 games for his country, while Afif has 26 goals in his 89 matches, both who were members of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup-winning team in UAE.
The Spaniard, who guided Qatar to a 3-1 victory over Japan in the Asian Cup final for the country's first major international title, has retained the core of the team which won the continental honours with 15 players from the triumphant team finding their way into the final roster. Besides the Asian Cup win, the core members of the team were part of 2019 Copa America, the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup and 2021 FIFA Arab Cup Qatar, reaching the semifinals of the latter two.
The team has a mixture of experience and youthful firepower with Hassan Al Haydos, the longtime serving captain the most capped player in the squad with 160 internationals under his belt. Three years down the line, after the Asian win, quite a few players have caught the eye of Sanchez and his talent scouts and made their way into the final squad with the likes of Homam Al Amin, Mohammed Waad, youngster Moustafa Tarek Meshaal, Naif Al Hadhrami and Jassim Jaber adding youthful vigour, having already made their mark in the local league.
Qatar squad for the World Cup is entirely made up of players who ply their trade in the QNB Stars League, with half of them from champions Al Sadd. Veteran Saad Al Sheeb, Meshaal Barsham and Youssef Hassan are the three goalkeepers while Pedro Miguel, Musaab Khidir, Tarek Salman, Abdelkarim Hassan, Boualem Khoukhi; Bassam Al Rawi and Ismaeel Mohammed, Homam and Jassim Jabir form the defence.
Al Sadd players dominate the midfield, with Ali Asad, Waad, Mustafa and Salem Al Hajri joined by Assim Madibo and Karim Boudiaf as well as Abdulaziz Hatem and Al Hadhrami. Al Haydos, Akram Afif Almoez Ali, Mohammed Muntari, Ahmed Alaa and Khaled Muneer are the forwards.
The hosts who had never qualified for a World Cup before this edition but will be playing the current edition on account of being the hosts will try to avoid the fate of South Africa, who remain the only host country which did not make it to the second round. The hosts thus will aim to reach the knockout stage from Group A, which includes title contenders Netherlands, African champions Senegal and Ecuador. They face Senegal on November 25 and Netherlands on November 29.
The Maroons, having undergone a lengthy preparatory stage, spent almost four months in near-lockdown to prepare for the tournament. In June, they moved to Marbella, Spain and from there to Vienna in Austria and played some friendlies including a 2-2 draw against Chile. On Monday they will head back to Qatar after spending almost one month in Marbella and head into their maiden World Cup on the back of two consecutive wins in unofficial friendlies against Panama (2-1) and Albania (1-0).
Sanzhez, who came out of Barcelona's youth academy in 2006 to join Aspire Academy, knows the scale of the task which lies ahead for him and his team. “We will face teams that have reached the finals of a World Cup, are champions of Africa. Many players are the best in the world in their positions, with World Cup and Champions League experience.... So we know what our role is, we know that we are not favourites but also, within our possibilities, we must set high expectations, high goals, try to compete to the maximum,” he said about the team which is ranked 50 on the FIFA ranking computer.
Sanchez is taking solace in the out-of-the-blue 2019 Asian Cup win in UAE where they defeated Japan in the final. “In 2019 it was very difficult to think that Qatar could win the Asian Cup and we won it. Obviously, I'm not talking about Qatar winning the World Cup, but competing at a good level against those three teams is our challenge. Then this is football, and you never know what can happen," he added.
