Doha Diary: Any chance of an impromptu reunion?
REUNION ON THE CARDS? ITV pundit Roy Keane is not the only ex-Republic of Ireland player on media duty in Qatar.
Not exactly the best spot for a knees-up, Doha nonetheless has the potential for quite the impromptu 20-year anniversary of Ireland’s last visit to one of these things.
Let’s check the guest list: Jason McAteer, on the early beat as a studio analyst for BeIn Sports; Robbie Keane, popping up alongside Keysey and Andy Gray on BeIn’s primetime broadcast, with Alessandro Del Piero bringing some style to the panel; Matt Holland, partnering Simon Brotherton on FIFA’s world commentary feed for Morocco-Croatia on Wednesday; Kevin Kilbane, a primary analyst for Canadian rights holder TSN alongside former Scottish international Steven Caldwell.
With Roy Keane busy spitting important truths and holding Graeme Souness to account on ITV’s coverage, the Saipan gang is (almost) all here. Let’s loosen those liquor laws just for one night, eh?
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A cold one is rarely too far from the conversation here — you want what you can’t have, right? And even with Wednesday’s temperatures dropping to their lowest of the tournament so far — a high of 27C and a frigid nighttime low of 18C, beer was still on many minds.
Enter Ed Ball, a hero among football men. The American has developed a Qatar Alcohol Map, which can be saved to any Google Maps smartphone app and shows you the closest location, usually a pricey hotel pub, to source a pint. Ball is what we can call a boffin, an aerospace salesman from Seattle who originally developed the map as “something useful for myself”. He’s done a service for the world.
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Least surprising news of Day 4? Cristiano Ronaldo bailing on his Matchday -1 media duties. The afternoon after his Manchester United departure had been confirmed, the Portugal captain was scratched from his requirements ahead of the meeting with Ghana. We presume if Piers was here there would have been a different outcome. Thank christ he isn’t.
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The World Cup is all about bringing together cultures, FIFA tells us. A lot of the time they’re right.
A scene on the metro on Wednesday morning was a perfect example. A father and son pairing of Welsh fans, head to toe in red and yellow with bucket hats to match, sat down beside a local gent in a traditional thobe. Through some mangled combo of English-Arabic-hand gestures, he asked them to show him where Wales was.
The Welsh son did some thumb zooming that seemed much too fast to land on Wales but the local said ‘ah yes, okay, Wales’. When the fans got off at the next stop the Qatari spent about 30 seconds frantically scrolling and zooming in and out with an exceedingly confused look on his face before sighing and giving up. We’ve all been there sir.
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Yesterday’s morning commute brought us by yet another gleaming tower but one that made us stop for a moment. It was the NHRC, Qatar’s National Human Rights Commission. You presume the guys making the sign forgot to put the word ‘Some' between ‘National' and ‘Human'. For those wondering, it looked particularly quiet with only six cars parked outside.
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