DOHA, Qatar — Planes had been touchdown, from all world wide, each jiffy. They got here from London and Tokyo, Hong Kong and São Paulo. There could be about 300 scheduled passenger flights touchdown at Hamad Worldwide Airport on Saturday.
However amongst them had been dozens of planes that had not come far, generally just some hundred miles from the west and after barely reaching cruising altitude. They got here from Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s next-door neighbor, they usually carried excited folks in inexperienced jerseys and with no baggage to examine.
These World Cup commuters wouldn’t keep lengthy. Kickoff was at 4 p.m. They’d get up again house on Sunday, a piece day, in their very own beds.
They had been soccer followers, they usually carried solely what they wanted: banners, flags and a passport. And so they introduced a renewed sense of collective expectation as they arrived to cheer Saudi Arabia, the unlikely darling of the match, if not your complete Center East.
Beating Argentina will try this. Each recreation, now, is greater than the final. After shedding to Poland, 2-0, the following, in opposition to Mexico on Wednesday, will determine if Saudi Arabia reaches the spherical of 16. That hope will generate one other day like this one.
By midmorning, the airport in Doha was spilling out bursts of inexperienced. Amongst them had been the brothers Faris and Salman al-Hassan, contemporary off a brief flight from Riyadh and carrying inexperienced jerseys and scarves.
They may have come by automobile, they stated — Doha is about six hours from Riyadh — however Qatar, nervous about automobile visitors, disincentivized that concept for the World Cup. It created a short lived toll of 5,000 Saudi riyal (about $1,330) for these driving throughout the border throughout the match.
Another was to park on the border and hop on a bus on the Abu Samra, Qatar, checkpoint, as 1000’s of others had executed over the previous week. The no-frills bus journey is little greater than an hour, however the bus isn’t the laborious half: Abu Samra is hours from any main Saudi metropolis.
So the selection was made by 1000’s: Commute by air.
Get in. Cheer. Get out.
“We are going to go straight to the stadium and are available proper again,” Salman al-Hassan stated.
About 20 flights arrived in Doha from Saudi Arabian cities between daybreak and 1 p.m. on Saturday, timed only for the afternoon kickoff.
A Transient Information to the 2022 World Cup
What’s the World Cup? The quadrennial occasion pits the most effective nationwide soccer groups in opposition to one another for the title of world champion. Right here’s a primer to the 2022 males’s match:
At 11:15 a.m., right here got here an Airbus 320 from Riyadh. One other huge Airbus departed close by Dammam, made a mild parabola within the sky, and touched down in Doha at 11:30 a.m. In its slipstream was a flight from Medina, then one other from Riyadh, then one from Damman, then one from Jeddah, throughout the Arabian Peninsula alongside the Crimson Sea.
That was within the area of an hour. Every flight, every big jet, disgorged bright-eyed revelers after which went again to fetch extra.
Into Qatar the followers got here, by way of customs and previous baggage declare — not a mandatory cease for many — and into the hushed corridor of the gleaming terminal. Some stopped at cubicles for a SIM card or some Qatari money. Some discovered a counter to stash their bag for the day, wishing they’d packed lighter.
Most, it turned out, had by no means been to Doha. It’s an rising international capital greater than a regional vacation spot.
This might be a fast fling, a one-day takeover. From the terminal the Saudis caught the metro, received off on the Msheireb station within the metropolis heart, walked round and ate, after which received again on the metro — the Inexperienced line, fittingly — for an eight-stop journey to Schooling Metropolis Stadium.
There, Poland awaited, very a lot the visiting crew.
Regardless of the consequence, all of this had come as a shock. Saudi Arabia’s soccer crew had arrived in Qatar as a basic underdog, its roster drawn principally from home leagues. It started the match with the longest odds within the subject, 1,000-to-1, and permission from a minimum of the dominion’s de facto ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Salman, to not fear an excessive amount of about wins or losses.
However down by 1-0 to Lionel Messi and Argentina on Tuesday, Saudi striker Saleh al-Shehri turned an prompt nationwide hero. Free on a breakaway, he despatched a sliding left-footer into Argentina’s objective. Teammate Salem al-Dawsari adopted a couple of minutes later with a thunderbolt into the upper-right nook.
The Saudis led and held to win. It was such an unlikely end result that Wednesday was declared a nationwide vacation. That gave followers extra time, presumably, to stage their in-and-out pilgrimages on Saturday and wha shall be at the least yet another.
Early on Saturday morning, earlier than eight, a household awoke of their properties in Riyadh and received out the door for the airport. That group, the Abdulilah household — two aunts, their nieces and nephews and a cousin — had purchased tickets months in the past, for 600 riyal ($160 per individual).
They thought of driving to Doha — all however one had by no means been — however the fee and the uncertainty about visitors and parking deterred them.
When extra flights had been added to the schedule a number of weeks in the past, they purchased airplane tickets for 999 riyal, or $266. Among the girls within the group admitted that they weren’t huge soccer followers. One, who most popular to present her title solely as Halah, had not heard of the now-famous gamers till the final match.
Her cousin, Luluh, stated the match could be her first-ever sporting occasion — a prospect that received infinitely extra thrilling with the victory over Argentina.
“I used to be watching with my son and he was terrified due to my screaming,” she stated.
Most Saudi followers arrived to the airport as they introduced themselves on the stadium: embellished in inexperienced, and generally holding a flag that might be worn as a cape. You possibly can inform those who had flown in only for the day, at the least from Riyadh, as a result of they’d been handed free inexperienced scarves on the airport earlier than departing.
Even these in conventional Saudi gown — a white full-length thobe for males, and a gown-like abaya for ladies — accentuated themselves with inexperienced or selected green-tinted abaya.
On the stadium, although, complete rows of males sat in crisp white thobes amongst swaths of followers carrying inexperienced crew jerseys — a loud sea of inexperienced and white speckled with Polish pink. Each time al-Shehri or al-Dawsari touched the ball with a gap towards the objective, the followers lifted of their seats in anticipation.
The sudden match success of the Saudis has rallied the area, possibly in sudden methods. The Saudis led a Gulf-region blockade of Qatar in 2017, solely ending it in 2021, and there may be some pure nervousness as Saudis watch tiny Qatar increase its profile.
However that is the primary World Cup held within the Center East, and on the opening ceremony, Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani sat with the Saudi chief, Sheikh Mohammed.
“Brothers,” a thobe-wearing man named Mohammed stated on the airport, describing the connection between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even with the blockade. “Identical folks, completely different nation.”
Now they had been related by an airborne parade. Specialists have chimed in on the carbon footprint of this World Cup — scientists are usually not impressed by the host’s claims of neutrality — however journey accounts for about half of it, one report discovered. And air visitors coming out and in of Doha is an enormous a part of that.
These considerations won’t sluggish the circulate from the west. And when the match ended, simply previous sunset, the day reversed itself.
The stadium emptied. The metro’s inexperienced line full of Saudi followers. 1000’s of soccer commuters crowded the airport once more.
They divided themselves onto planes that introduced them house in the identical brief arcs — to Riyadh, to Dammam, to Medina, to Jeddah. They returned to the beds that they’d left within the morning. An tour greater than a visit, however one with a sense that can final.
“You by no means get the possibility to have the World Cup subsequent door,” Mohammed stated. “You possibly can virtually stroll there.”