Down south, a mere six and a half hour flight from England sits a small yet fairly industrialising country, Qatar. Those of you football fanatics will know of Qatar because of it’s grant to hold the 2022 World Cup, one grant that left us with a footballing world uprising. But nevertheless I have no doubt that this beautiful country will give us more than we are asking for in our beloved FIFA World Cup.
However, like most countries Qatar holds it’s on football league The QLS. This league gives home to 14 teams and 9 stadiums. The top two teams their equivalent in fame to Chelsea or Man City is Al Sadd and Qatar sc. Comparing these two in name is fair enough but in footballing ability now that would be taking a ‘dig’ at Man City and Chelsea. Little can I say about the footballing ability Qatar leagues hold, but they ignorantly refuse to use their wingers, instead an English amateur league approach is taken in trying to drive at the oppositions large and moderately effective centre backs.
And to move on to their finishing…god it really is terrible.
The two teams I watched Al sadd v Qatar sc were brilliant at build up play they were moving the ball into relatively dangerous areas but their decision making was awful, for the chances they were given they should have scored a lot more. In the Barclays Premier League and even the football league the attackers pull the trigger a lot quicker. Before the defence can think about dealing with the bouncing ball that has ripped their defence apart, the attacker would have already unleashed a deadly strike ripping the clean sheet recorded apart. This doesn’t happen in Qatar if an attacker is given a through ball they will stop and wait for support, allowing the defence to track back and save the day. Which leaves the QLS with very little goals to show.
What I noticed happening a lot was the players wanting the ball to be in the air as soon as that ball went flying into the air they were all over it wanting to head it back up, kick it back up anything to keep that ball bouncing. although a few experienced players do play in this league and will bring the ball down to play it along the floor, a large amount of players won’t. Leaving the ‘Barca way undetected in this area of football.
Where as in English football we are keen to get that ball down and along the floor playing the ‘beautiful game’ as Arsene Wenger would put it.
If I was to asses these teams and set up a fixture to shock the world in how incapable the team is at finishing and passing I would place my much loved local semi-professional side, Dorchester Town against them. This would not only give the fans a treat but I think Dorchester would give Qatar Sc or Al Sadd a run for their money!
However we must remember football has only been around for 10-20 years tops in Qatar and none of us were around to witness the first decade or so of English football so how are we to know if we didn’t play like this? But the question still lies in ‘our we giving out beloved World Cup to an amateur footballing country?’
