The Doha Diary: The Irish link on the Qatar sideline, Germany's isolated base and... the local pub scene
FAMILIAR FACE: Richie Partridge during the Sean Cox Fundraiser match between the Republic of Ireland XI and Liverpool FC Legends. Partridge is the a physio with Qatar. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
With all the late focus and angst around beer we had to, ahem, do our own research and successfully hunted down the Examiner’s first pint of Qatar 2022 on Thursday night. Due to proximity and not paddywhacking parochialism (we promise), The Irish Pub at the Best Western Plus was chosen. Tucked up on the 14th floor with security on the door and no cameras allowed, it was hardly welcoming.
Nonetheless the place was packed. At a cool €13.20 we dared not chance the quality of the Guinness and instead opted for a Heineken. (For those who prefer plonk, a bottle of Yellow Tail, €8 in Super Valu, came in at €69.) Quaffing the pint down to the strains of some lassie absolutely massacring Zombie up on a corner stage didn’t make the price tag more palatable, surprisingly. One was enough.
Those who have taken the Qatari PR millions are rarely far from the eye around Doha’s shiny new metro stations, Beckham and the boys plastered on escalators and elevator doors. Neymar is a particularly frequent presence too. But at least he’s better in 2D.
His cameo in the in-flight safety video for Qatar Airways, offering a final tip after Robert Lewandowski and Cafu had handled the bulk of the work, is as cringey as they come. The gold standard in this arena was and remains the All Blacks’ contributions to Air New Zealand safety guides, the 2015 World Cup edition a Richie-McCaw-and-Dan-Carter-do-Men-in-Black masterpiece.
While Malta is as close as Stephen Kenny and his squad will get to the Persian Gulf this weekend, there will be Irish involvement on the pitch on the World Cup’s opening night. Or at least on the side of it. Former Ireland Under 21 international and one-time Liverpool super prospect Richie Partridge is part of the host nation’s support staff.
The Dubliner, who played for Coventry and Sheffield Wednesday before retiring and becoming a physiotherapist. He worked his way up from youth team physio at Liverpool to the first team before joining the Qatar national team set-up two years ago.
Chris Hughton is another Irish representative who’ll be in the thick of things here. But the Ghana technical director and his team were among the latest arrivals in to Doha. That’s understandable.
The Black Stars and Portugal will be the final two teams to get their tournament underway next Thursday night. The brains trust of manager Otto Addo, Hughton and former Aston Villa midfielder George Boateng, had plenty of positives to ponder on their short hop in from Abu Dhabi where Ghana beat Switzerland 2-0 in an impressive final tune-up on Thursday night.
The daily diary provided to the media by FIFA gives a rundown of who’s training where and when. This being the most compact World Cup in history, everything is reachable. Almost everything. Germany’s first media activity of the tournament Friday caught the eye. Until we Google Mapped it out. True to form, the Germans have gone their own way and escaped Doha by a distance, basing themselves on Qatar’s northern tip in Al Ruwais. It’s 120km or so but over two and a half hours of a commute.
Thomas Muller and co are training at Al Shamal’s red brick fortress-like stadium and spending the rest of their days at the Zulal Wellness Resort. Hansi Flick will hope isolation breeds inspiration.
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