Key events
“There is a common thread of hope, jubilation and respect,” says Morgan Freeman, whose surname feels like an act of trolling given his role today.
Morgan Freeman is on the stage, talking about unity, while … I don’t know how to begin describing this. Just watch it. Chris Morris has excelled himself.
Finally, what it’s all been for: the power for Qatar to bring the world to it, and globally broadcast a chosen image for itself.
Gianni Infantino sitting between the ruler, the Emir, and Mohamed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, football’s place in the world. https://t.co/bF2ggAdqfH
— David Conn (@david_conn) November 20, 2022
Qatar 2022 is under way!
The lights have been dimmed at the Al Bayt Stadium, and the opening ceremony is about to begin.
England latest
Well, this is awkward. The UK TV coverage doesn’t begin for another 22 minutes, so I don’t know whether the opening ceremony is happening as I type. Tremendous. If I’ve missed Robbie Williams I’ll be filthy.
Netherlands latest
It’s nearly time for the opening ceremony. You’d better have brought those moves.
“I was five when Mexico 86 was in full flow,” writes Matt Gaw. “I remember Maradona’s second goal as something truly special… but maybe not quite as special as hearing my dad say the C-word for the first time in response to Diego’s flappy hand. Happy days.”
It’s an open goal, sure, but Jamie Carragher has finished with aplomb
On the way to Qatar 2022 opener. It’s fairly mindboggling to be saying this, on various levels. Somewhere among everything Ecuador will play football, probably pretty well, and here’s an interview with their three representatives from … Brighton: https://t.co/DlgKtOa8sY
— Nick Ames (@NickAmes82) November 20, 2022
Spain latest
Here’s another good story from Reuters. It might also be a good question for the Knowledge.
Spain winger Ferran Torres faces big challenges at the World Cup in Qatar but his relationship with the daughter of national team coach Luis Enrique is not one of them, according to the Barcelona player.
“Not at all,” Torres told a news conference on Sunday when asked whether he felt pressure because of the relationship.
“I think the coach and I, we know how to differentiate between when it’s family and when we are manager and player. I think we have to get on with it in a natural way, just that and we’re getting along fine.”
Torres, 22, went public about his relationship with Sira Martinez, a Spanish show-jumper who is also 22, this year.
Luis Enrique joked about it on Saturday when he was asked which of the Spain players represented an extension of him on the field of play.
“Very easy – it’s Mr Ferran Torres – otherwise my daughter will come after me and chop off my head,” the coach said in an online chat.
The former Manchester City winger is one of several young players trusted by Luis Enrique as he seeks to build a new Spanish powerhouse to rival the team who won the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.
“We are a team with a lot ahead of us, we are very young,” Torres said. “The young ones, we are very hungry, very ambitious and keen to show off our football.”
“Conflicted as I am about watching the damn thing, I resort to The Guardian’s liveblog to follow the shenanigans as per usual,” says Giancarlo Sandoval. “All I can say is holding both the sham that is this World Cup and the actual football together will prove difficult, but I am glad to have a conflicted liveblog rather than one that pretends that this whole thing is not riddled with horrifying issues. Vamos!”
I sometimes wonder if that makes us worse. I’m conflicted about being conflicted!
“If you spell Qatar’s star player’s surname backwards, you get ‘Fifa’,” writes Admir Pajic, “which is ironic because when Fifa goes backwards, you get a November/December World Cup in Qatar.”
Now that’s a view
Meanwhile, here’s my view.
Nostalgia corner
I’m not sure any World Cup has produced as many great goals – or iconic commentaries – as Mexico 86. This is a thing of soul-stirring beauty.
“Hi Rob,” writes Beth. “Everyone is rightly highlighting migrant worker deaths, human rights abuses, LGBTQ stance, etc. yet hardly anyone is mentioning what a crap deal women get in Qatar. They do not live as equals.
“I am a member of the LGBTQ clan so obviously hold those issues very close to my heart, but as a woman I’d have a significantly more limited and less free existence if i was born in Qatar. I do not understand why more people are not speaking about this. Can you shed any light?”
I wish I could. Though it’s impossible to quantify, it does feel like the issue of women’s rights has been relatively underreported (even though there have been some good pieces). I don’t know the answer, but I suspect it’s not a pleasant one.
A World Cup isn’t a World Cup without an email from Gary Naylor
“Prompted by Ian Copestake’s first email of the tournament, I was about to draft the last email of the tournament, looking back on outrageously unlikely events, deadpanning all the way. But I can’t quite find the seam of levity to mine (it’s not just that the humour shrivels on the screen, it just won’t come).
“Maybe it takes a genius like David Squires, but even he has gone for education over entertainment so far. Football eh? Bloody Hell! Alas, for too many, a description not an exclamation.”
This is a cracking read
France decide not to replace Benzema
And here’s a third.
France coach Didier Deschamps has decided not to replace injured striker Karim Benzema in his World Cup squad, leaving the reigning champions with 25 players for their title defence.
Benzema trained with the squad for the first time since arriving in Qatar on Saturday but was forced to leave the session early with a thigh injury and scans ruled him out of the tournament.
Asked on Sunday by TeleFoot whether he would replace the Ballon d’Or winner in his squad, Deschamps said “No”.
“This is a quality group,” he added. “In everything they do, both on and off the pitch, they are united. I have confidence in them.”
France open their campaign against Australia on Tuesday and also play Tunisia and Denmark in Group D.
Depay to miss Senegal game
Here’s another Reuters report on an injured attacker.
Memphis Depay will miss out on the Netherlands’ opening World Cup game against Senegal, coach Louis van Gaal said on Sunday.
The forward hurt his hamstring playing for the Dutch against Poland in the Nations League in September but this week told reporters he was fit to play after participating in training.
“It will be a blow for us just like Sadio Mane missing for Senegal is a blow for them,” Van Gaal said of Monday’s Group A clash against the African champions in Doha.
Van Gaal has insisted that players selected for matches be 100 per cent match fit and in form.
Brass tacks department
Lukaku likely to miss Belgium’s first two games
Here’s a Reuters story on the news that divisive goal machine Romelu Lukaku probably won’t be fit until Belgium’s final group game. Buy shares in Michy Batshuayi while you can .
Belgium’s record goalscorer Romelu Lukaku trained apart from the squad on Sunday as uncertainty over his fitness continued to cast a shadow over the team’s World Cup campaign.
Lukaku, 29, has made two substitute appearances in the last four months at club level as he struggles with a hamstring injury and is unlikely to be ready for Belgium’s opening Group F clashes against Canada on Wednesday and Morocco, officials told a news conference on Sunday.
His situation is being evaluated on a daily basis, and the objective is to have him available for the last group game against Croatia on December 1.
Lukaku is a key part of a Belgian side hoping to live up to their lofty Fifa ranking of second in the world. He has scored a record 68 goals in 102 internationals.
Wing back Thomas Meunier also trained individually as he continues his recovery from a cheekbone fracture. He played 20 minutes in Friday’s friendly loss to Egypt in Kuwait City.
Leandro Trossard returned to training after a light injury, as did back-up goalkeeper Koen Casteels and attacker Thorgan Hazard.
Say cheese
Steven Bloor has selected some of the most eye-catching player portraits, including a smouldering Jack Grealish and a man with a nickname you’ll never be able to forget.
World Cup briefing: day one
Throughout the tournament, we’ll have a World Cup briefing every morning. The first has been lovingly penned by Gregg Bakowski.
Some news from the USA camp
The US play Wales tomorrow in a mouthwatering match that might ultimately decide whether they reach the last 16. Or it might not.
The first email of the tournament comes from Ian Copestake
“I started a very long email (Infantino length!) as this event brings up so many thoughts, memories, issues. But ‘at the end of the day’ I just want to say I am here for you, bro’! So glad to have you on board even if it is the Titanic!.
Who will win the World Cup (apart from Joe Lycett)?
Brazil and Argentina are the popular choices, though it’s not entirely beyond the realms that Brazil – like the 2018 favourites, Germany – could go out in the first round. I think Spain are the best European team in the tournament, but they have a stinker of a group and could also end up on flight DO1 from Doha before the knockout stage begins.
In short, it’s a William Goldman World Cup: nobody knows anything. Just the way it should be.
(Since you asked, I have Mexico in the sweepstake, which at least adds a bit of certainty to my life.)
Today’s match will be played at the spectacular Al Bayt Stadium. You can read all about it – the good, the bad and unforgivable – here.
Team guides
We have an interactive guide to every team, and indeed every player. Let’s start with the hosts, a side who… well, nobody really knows.
Ecuador have gone under the radar – they live under the radar – but could ruin a few wallcharts that have been prematurely filled in. To borrow from Barry Davies, when will we learn that major tournaments never pan out as expected. (In 2018, for example, Germany were supposed to play England in the quarter-finals. Didn’t happen.)
Anyway, Ecuador. Read all about them.
Get your questions in for Football Daily
Best laid plans department
Gridlock outside Al Bayt stadium before Qatar v Ecuador. Our taxi moved 400m in about 40 minutes before bailing. And this is was around four hours before kick off. Lots of hooting cars and anger pic.twitter.com/UxOOIB8LCr
— Sean Ingle (@seaningle) November 20, 2022
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the greatest sham on earth. Qatar 2022: the tournament that puts the ‘vile’ in ‘violation’. It’s a despicable farce – part sinister power trip, part Chris Morris satire – and comes with a human cost that is acceptable only to those with a disease of the mind. But it’s also a World Cup, the greatest show on earth, so there’s a fair bit of the old cognitive dissonance flying round. Rampant human-rights violations, World Cup. World Cup, rampant human-rights violations.
I’m well aware that, even in the Guardian echo chamber, there won’t be a consensus about the most appropriate way to liveblog this tournament. I’m sure some of you are thinking, ‘For heaven’s sake man, concentrate on the football, I want to know whether Qatar invert their wing-backs!’ Others will feel we shouldn’t be talking about the football at all, that this minute-by-minute report shouldn’t exist, that the Guardian should take a stand by liveblogging Alan Titchmarsh’s Love Your Garden on ITV instead.
The football will take over soon enough – it always does – but the controversy isn’t going to disappear, especially after the Fifa president Gianni Infantino gave the most bizarre speech since Father Ted Crilly received his Golden Cleric award and launched into an extended score-settler. And there are still some disturbing unknowns, not least how fans will be treated if they don’t show a little bit of flex and compromise.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to segue delicately to the actual football, so I’m just going to do it and hope I get away with it. In a few hours’ time, the hosts Qatar will kick off against Ecuador in Al Khor. Group A also contains Senegal and the Netherlands, who meet in the tournament’s first big game tomorrow, so both teams could really do with a win today.
The focus on Qatar the nation means we know very little about Qatar the team. They were impressive winners of the Asian Cup in 2019, winning all seven games and conceding only one goal. Their recent form isn’t as strong, but they did draw with Chile and have two very exciting attacking talents in Akram Afif and Almoez Ali.
Qatar have been training together for five months, which puts them five up on the other 31 teams. But they are still, in more ways than one, the outsiders in Group A. Whatever we might think of Qatar hosting the tournament, we shouldn’t ignore the rich, complicated human story of a squad representing their country in such a seismic event.
Ecuador’s young side qualified impressively, finishing ahead of teams like Chile, Colombia and Peru, although their recent results have had – and what a fragrance this would be – a whiff of George Graham: 1-0, 0-0, 1-0, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0. Brighton’s Moises Caicedo is the star of a dynamic team who are some people’s dark horses to go deepish in the tournament.
The opening ceremony begins shortly; then it’ll be time – finally – to watch some football. Let’s get this sham/show on the road.
Kick off 4pm in London, 7pm in Al Khor, 11am in Quito.