Match 6 - "Do You Even Like Soccer?" & Other Stories From the Struggle Shuttle
With a 17:35 flight and the airport 40 minutes away via taxi I thought we’d have plenty of time leaving the hotel at 16:00. The email said we only had to arrive 30 minutes before, as it was at a small commuter airport only servicing matchday shuttles between the two cities. Well, obviously if I’m giving you this transportation background it means we missed the flight. Ensue chaos, stress, and general exhaustion. Guess even abroad Black Friday had plans in store for me, and I didn’t even get The Frame TV I was eyeing.
It could have been worse. In my downtime I read about and spoke to other World Cup commuters who were struggling greatly with visa issues. At least we weren’t dealing with that nonsense. We missed our flight by a couple of minutes, but others had been there for hours dealing with entry issues. My favorite story (that I will exaggerate and fill in gaps) was a Welsh father and son trying to attend their match, and the father not getting approved to fly but the son was. He then spoke to some fellow compatriots to take him, and they agreed to take his five-year old (read exaggeration) to Doha and then return him back to Dubai). I heard dozens of Welsh fans failed to make it to their match.
After not getting through on standby, we simply confirmed seats for the first available flight, one that would all but guarantee that we would miss kick off, as of course this match was being played at the stadium farthest away from the city. Bednego, our cab driver from Kenya, was fantastically speeding to get us there as fast as he could. Which surprised me that he could violate the law so blatantly in front of police and cameras. I suppose traffic laws are less important to them? Even arriving at the stadium ten minutes late, it still took us around a half hour to get us to our seats, due to the distances we had to walk, but also a highly amusing security delay when my mother got flagged for bringing in candles, matches, and potential patriotic shivs.
Held at Security
It’s hard to tell, but that’s a box of matches, a candle, and two American flags on wooden sticks with a spike. One of the guards was about to tear them off of the “poles” when their supervisor waved them off and assessed mom as not a threat and let her keep them. She was not allowed to keep the matches.
It wouldn’t be a travel blog without some hiccups. I just wish it would have happened to me alone and not others whom I’ve dragged halfway across the world. I can swallow and internalize an error better if it doesn’t affect others. They must be commended for their flexibility and tenacity to handle an exorbitantly long day. Even if it had gone successfully. The ideal situation would have been a 12+ hour day on their feet moving around a country they’ve never been to. The delay did allow us to drink some slightly cheaper beer at the airport while we waited. Look at Zoe crush her beer in the corner of the airport.
We spoke to a bunch of England fans who had been stuck in airport purgatory for hours longer than us. I eventually started simply asking my sister and mother, “Do you even like soccer?” And pushing a narrative that they found it boring, so missing some of the game wouldn’t be a big deal. This being a work holiday for many people back home, only added to the stress. Becks was the first as she mentioned she had already arrived at a bar to start watching (though in hindsight, it was probably that she was starting with the Netherlands). Slowly folks began finding locations. Robbie and the rest of the Prem Brulee (my fantasy soccer crew) group chat started discussing where they were going to be watching. Emma showed up to support the wrong team at Dog and Bone. Mattos and her family completed their turkey trot and had posted up at a bar before we even had an outdoor table before we even left Dubai. Sam tried to send some Jew luck my way, but we both agreed it wouldn’t be much help out here.
Well it turned out it wasn’t exactly a thriller or a memorable match. Many (most) Americans seemed quite happy with a draw against the clearly superior English, but I, with the compounding stress trying to travel 300 miles with about 2.5 hours before kick off, probably had unrealistic expectations for the match. Nicole, I’m sorry, but I maintain that the Americans in the final half hour of the match should have been more aggressive. A draw is more helpful for the English than for us. A draw or loss doesn’t really change the math for us against Iran.
We spent the postgame wandering the fan festival outside the stadium. A first for me, as I normally just left the stadium areas as quickly as possible. But yesterday I had nowhere to be. Our return flight was still hours away. We eventually wandered over to Lusail, the new area / city that was built for the tournament. It is a weird empty husk of a neighborhood, sparking again, what is this country going to do with these developments? Is everyone going to try and compete with Dubai and build their own winter sun destination? How many can the region hold? Particularly when you’re the conservative option of the field?
We spent our final hours of the trek in Doha’s old airport, which had reopened to support these commuter matchday shuttles. Mostly servicing Saudi Arabia and the UAE. I had never seen such a group of miserable exhausted travelers. Employees greeted with a Good Morning, and were basically just grunted back to as people weren’t thrilled by that opener. Hundreds of English and Americans scattered around the waiting areas, most passed out. 0-0 wasn’t a result worth spending more energy to celebrate. Plenty just deciding the floor would be easier and just committing to laying down after being on their feet for so many hours. Flights left hourly. Saw multiple people wake up having missed theirs and having to wait on standby for another. Speaking to and overhearing other groups state that this was an awful experience, and they were going to have to find other ways to attend matches made sense. Multiple people said they’d rather just stay in Dubai and watch, where it was comfortable and they could drink affordably.
We watched the sunrise while we boarded our plane. Zoe deemed it the Struggle Shuttle, and it is far too accurate. A bunch of zombified foreigners, everyone seemed to spend all their energy just staying upright. A pile of vomit greeted us at immigration in Dubai, where clearly someone, definitely not from drinking, had just given up and decided their body couldn’t handle any more. Finally, in broad daylight, we arrived back at the Palm. Where we contemplated room service before promptly falling asleep with the menus in hand. They’re both still asleep, as I write this. I’m a bit more acclimated to the time zone. I’ll let them have another hour before I tell them it’s time for a late lunch and get them massages to ease their sore muscles.
A final soccer stat for anyone who cares. This was the fifth nil-nil draw in the tournament. The record is 7. Not a good record to beat. It’s also England’s 12th, which is the most for any country ever in the World Cup.
This is the end of Week 1 for me. And really a hiatus on the football / Qatar side of things. We’re spending the rest of the weekend in Dubai. And I won’t be back in person for a match until the Round of 16. What a week of a ridiculous amount of in person football. However, this condensed schedule must be brutal on the players. My only issue with the rescheduling to a winter tournament is simply that they didn’t allocate enough weeks for it. The timing of it, as I’ve mentioned before, is perfectly fine in my opinion. But lack of rest between matches will lead to more injuries. And players are already playing too many matches. Why they aren’t more involved in these scheduling discussions is beyond me.
Found this at one of the FIFA pop up stores. I assume they just found a random box and threw it in to see if someone would buy it? It wasn’t even discounted…
Of all the souvenirs, there are only two that have caught my eye so far. The first is a paperweight / desk… thing that is just a piece of desert stone / crystal? Some sort of compounding mineral through sand. It’s around $50… we’ll see at the end of the trip it ends in my luggage. This has no Qatari branding on it. However, the second does. There are some two sided scarves for teams. On one side it would be the countries name in their native language, and on the other it’s in Arabic. Which I actually think is quite cool. I always appreciate that level of uniqueness.