About the match between the Russian team and the Qatari team could only be learned through social networks; In Doha itself there was nothing to talk about the upcoming game. Even at the El-Janub stadium, where the match was played, there was not a single mention of the match with the Russian team. It was as if the guards themselves did not know this; They wouldn’t let us into our team’s training for a long time the day before the game, desperately trying to call one or the other first to get permission to open the door. door.
An hour before the game, the stadium was lonely and deserted, but suddenly people began to approach. Russian fans with flags, cheeks painted in the colors of the tricolor, kokoshniks and other attributes advanced in small groups towards the entrances. There were even businessmen who decided to make a pair of rials with the flags; a business that flourished during the World Cup, this time it was not successful. Either because the flags were held incorrectly, or because people came with their own paraphernalia.
Flags of Russia
Photo: Polina Kuimova, “Championship”
“The expectation of the national team is one thing: of course, victory, there can be nothing else,” Ibrahim said. – Unfortunately we lost in the last friendly match. Now we are waiting for victory. ““There will be a lot of support,” added his wife Yulia. “Many people will come. Our company alone is made up of 11 families.”
Russian national team fans Ibrahim and Yulia
Photo: Polina Kuimova, “Championship”
According to them, there were many announcements about the upcoming match on social networks in the Russian-speaking community, and tickets were distributed free of charge at the embassy. You can also buy it yourself for 10 rials (about 275 rubles). In total, about 900 Russian fans were expected to attend the match, and all of them were local: about three thousand Russians live in Qatar (now, maybe more), taking into account Russian speakers, from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Ukraine, this number is even higher.
The Qatari team was also not left without support: some received free tickets, others hastily bought them at the box office half an hour before the match.
Queue at the cash register
Photo: Polina Kuimova, “Championship”
Most of the immigrant workers came to cheer on Qatar: Pakistanis who changed their Argentine national team uniforms for Inter Miami shirts, Algerians, Moroccans. “There is nothing else to do in Qatar,” said a Moroccan who was waiting to be called at the entrance. – Why not go to football? They gave me a fine, I decided to spend the evening like this. Especially since I have a day off. I don’t know anything about the Russian team. Well, I’ll find out.”
The Qatari sector entered mainly in small groups and according to some lists. First they lined them up, counted them, wrote them down on a sheet of paper and only then threw them. And so many times.
Queue at the stadium entrance
Photo: Polina Kuimova, “Championship”
Already in the stadium it was clear that Qatar, in accordance with the mandates of the World Cup, organized a support sector, which sang under the direction of the leader in a T-shirt with the inscription Qatar, applauded according to the script and changed. the repertoire according to him. They could be heard throughout the game, but our sector, despite its large number, only occasionally lit up. The fans, like the footballers, were active for the first 20 minutes, then calmed down, completely ceding the initiative to the opposing stands. The cardboard cutout of Artyom Dzyuba, which the girl brought with her (she said that she had been living with him for four years and now it was time for her to leave), looked disapprovingly at the field from her place.
Cardboard Artyom Dzyuba
Photo: Dmitry Golubovich, “Championship”
People were clearly not impressed by what happened on the field: the Russian team, from which everyone who attended the match expected a crushing victory, gave a game that left mixed impressions. On the one hand, it is a friendly match. We just need you to continue meeting, playing and proving that, despite all the bans and prohibitions, we exist. From the point of view of the result, it means nothing, from the point of view of some kind of contribution to the future, it means a lot. Valery Karpin himself says that all the matches that the national team has played over the past year and a half are important precisely for the future development of the team. But, on the other hand, during this time we have imperceptibly adapted to the fact that for us these friendly matches are a kind of litmus test of the current state of Russian football, as the qualifying matches were before. Hence the demand for draws with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Qatar.
And this demand was heard from the stands in Doha: a young man with a tricolor on his cheeks actively demanded a response from Ruslan Litvinov, who came up to talk to journalists on the sidelines. “When will you play normally, huh? – he forced his voice. – When?!”.
Without waiting for a response, he left, waving his hand toward the field.
There was no answer to this question. But there were others:
