We drink football, ” he says. “It’s our lifestyle. Our blood. ”He shrugs. “Everybody here, they love soccer. It’s more rare when they don’t love it. ”He’s asked what kind of impact a victory of that magnitude might have, for both the soccer-fixated in Saudi and for the country overall. “Deep impact, ” the man says, hinting at the forthcoming World Cup bid that’s reportedly to be shared with Egypt and Greece. “We have our vision, 2030, yeah.
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The customer went to college at Michigan State, and he never understood why the locals were so fixated with hockey. He hailed from Saudi Arabia. Football, his version, is what he knew. His son is with him, trailing behind. The customer says the boy didn’t need this day, or the day before, to understand a city with a soccer soul. The customer attended his first national game while still in first grade. He can still remember the Asian Cup triumph, the country’s first, way back in 1984. “We eat football.
Another pitch. Teenagers goof off, riding two to a bike, with one peddling and the other standing on the seat behind them. None of them attended school this day. Yet another pitch. Then a small soccer stadium. The trip into Al Hofuf is this, exactly, over and over and over again. Slaughterhouse, pitch. Delivery drivers, pitch. Falafel restaurant. Pitch. How did Saudi Arabians celebrate an epic soccer victory? With more soccer, naturally. Across the street from the light red pitch where the national team’s goalkeeper trained, there is a store that sells soccer gear from all corners of the globe.
The passion that leads parents in that direction, he says, is “electric, ” meaning it courses and powers and adds meaning and significance. He watched the Argentina upset on his phone, screaming inside the store. A customer stops by the front counter. He’s wearing green, of course. Who isn’t? The customer came early that morning, to buy national team swag, but the man behind the counter had already sold out.
Saudi Arabia is a founding member of OPEC and built the largest economy in the Arab States. And The Kingdom wants to exert its on-pitch power, too. Tuesday didn’t seem like that day when the sun rose over the towers that fight for positions of prominence in downtown Doha. Argentina, the Green Falcons’ first foe, entered the tournament on an intimidating international streak, unbeaten in 36 straight—one shy of Italy’s record. La Albiceleste hadn’t been vanquished since before COVID-19 existed, its last loss coming in 2019. Sportsbooks gave Saudi Arabia 25:1 odds, and Argentina took the early lead, behind a first-half penalty from Messi.
Here in Al Hofuf and the neighboring suburbs, it’s impossible to traverse more than a few blocks without spotting a pitch. The surfaces vary: grass, turf, carpet, clay, dirt, even sand dunes. Some are padlocked. Some are fenced in. Some are guarded by towers and fences. Some are lit. One, during a Wednesday tour, even features couches with upholstery ripped to the padding and stained recliners stacked near each other to qualify as “stands. ” As the largest sports tournament in the world unfolds about 100 miles away, Qatar’s only neighbor accessible by land is not absent soccer history.
To the world, the upset seemed to come from nowhere. But not to the Saudis, who believe they know exactly where it came from. Who knew? A country that’s not really known for sports still has a soccer soul. To get from Doha to Al Hofuf is like traveling anywhere in this part of the globe. The journey is just that, an amalgam of black camels strolling in the distance, border walls, desert sand, campers parked on the beach, a Saudi border guard who doesn’t simply grab his AK-47 but places his finger on the trigger, three separate taxis, seven checkpoints, two passport offices, Google maps, Google translate, a Qatari policeman from Iran hitching a ride to his car, a botched appearance with Don Lemon and friends on CNN This Morning and a sign that doubles as a mirage. Welcome to The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it finally, mercifully says.
According to local legend, Al Hofuf is also the burial place of two fictional lovers, Layla and Majnun. Their love story was created as a poem and is the Arab world’s version of Romeo and Juliet. In it, Majnun is deemed too obsessive, Layla is married to someone else and Majnun becomes a hermit who spends every day writing poetry professing his adoration for Layla. Alas, they die before they can marry or even rekindle their romance.
The surface is colored light red and pocked with pebbles. The sidelines are awash in broken glass. The men run and pass and dribble in red, green, black, maroon and neon jerseys, and they are happy, first to be playing soccer, which they do even while fasting when it’s Ramadan, before dawn or after nightfall. But they are also ecstatic, smiling and giggling like teenagers, for an epic event that took place the previous afternoon a country away. “Yesterday, we proved we can win on any team, ” says Abdulaziz Alfarhan, now 26 and once a soccer prospect. He points at the row of houses beyond the field.
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He saw the fans from Saudi Arabia who traveled across a border, by car but mostly by bus and perhaps even a few by air; saw their “passion and love for the game of football. ” He saw a team that earned its place in World Cup history, too. “They didn’t sit back, ” De Rosario said. “It wasn’t fluke goals. It wasn’t luck.
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But in Souq Alriyadha, there’s no holiday. They’re working overtime to capitalize on the previous afternoon. The man behind the counter went to college at Central Washington, halfway between Seattle and Spokane. That morning, he sold out of national team gear. He got more. He sold out again. He got more, and the store is full, and no one is stopping by any racks for the famous clubs from Europe. Infants here, the man behind the counter says, start indoctrination into the local sports obsession around “7 or 8 months” old.
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