The wait is over. The FIFA World Cup 2022 officially kicks off today.
Finally, the moment the world has been waiting for. The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 finally kicks off tonight. Just the 2nd time that an Asian country gets to host a FIFA World Cup tournament. First it was Korea Republic alongside Japan in the FIFA World Cup 2002.
The exciting World Cup kicks off with the host nation Qatar taking on Ecuador at the Al Bayt Stadium at 18:00 tonight. Qatar as host nations will be looking to open with a victory. Qatar is not going into this one as favourites but they certainly will be looking to fight to at least reach the knock out phase in which their journey will start today against Ecuador. A win is an objective for Qatar as the head coach had explained that the nation will be backing them to win the first game and set the tone so they will be looking to not disappoint their people.
Head-to-head both sides have a victory each and have played out to a draw once with Qatar winning their last encounter between the two sides in a friendly game. Ecuador are ranked 44th in the FIFA World Rankings whilst host nation Qatar are ranked 50th. Qatar will be looking to use most of their local based players, having invested a lot of money into their league, they will be hoping to reap the fruits for their hard work. Their league has grown into being one of the best in the Asian continent. Whilst Ecuador have started to invest more on academies in the country hence the recent rise in Ecuadorian youngsters moving to the European leagues.
Ecuador are currently ranked 44th in the FIFA World Rankings, and they will be coming into this encounter as favourites, having already experienced a vast amount of their talents recently moving to the elite European leagues. The most notable one being the young midfielder Moises Caicedo, at only 20 years old already bossing the midfield for English Premier League side Brighton Hove & Albion. The man to watch out for is the Ecuador captain himself, Enner Valencia. The 33-years old striker is currently on red-hot form, after scoring a total of 13 goals also assisting a further 4 goals in just 12 games for Turkish giants Fenerbahce. He is known for being a lethal striker even for the national team having scored a total of 35 goals in only 74 national team appearances. He will surely look to carry his side throughout the tournament.
Although the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 has received a lot of criticism and backlash from football legends, politicians and even football stars whom are set to participate at the tournament. Qatar remains focused on making this tournament become a big success and remain as one of the best World Cup tournaments to occur. It will certainly be a very expensive World Cup but we will be hoping for football fans to travel to Qatar in numbers to attend all the games so we can experience some vibrating atmospheres at the World Cup.
The Al Bayt Stadium will host the opening game. The beautiful stadium is set to be packed tonight with local fans set to come in numbers to support their national team battle it out against a fast rising Ecuador. Al Bayt is very amazing, check it out below:
You must be logged in to post a comment.