Al-Rayyan, Qatar – A group of friends and family gather every day at the majlis in a building a short distance from their homes in Al-Rayyan, just west of Doha.
It is a tradition that has been going on for years and is part of daily life here in Qatar. A majlis is an area in a house or a separate building that is used for all kinds of gatherings, from daily rest to more important events.
But now, with the World Cup in town, it has taken on a different theme: a football watching party.
The majlis-goers, mostly middle-aged and older, were there to watch Sunday’s opening game of the 2022 World Cup, Qatar v Ecuador.
In Qatar they have been waiting for this moment for years. Across the country, at majlis like this one, Qataris tuned in to see themselves on the world stage.
Not that everyone was here for the game.
“Honestly, I don’t like football,” said Nasser Al Thani, who is here most days. “Everybody’s here for the game, but I’m here for the opening ceremony.”
The opening ceremony, with its display of Qatar’s history, took guests back to their childhood. One moment, in particular, brought them back when a video of Qatar’s former emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was shown playing soccer in the desert in what guests estimated to be the early 1970s.
“We used to play in the sand like this,” Al Thani said. “Barefoot, bleeding toes. When I see these old pictures, they remind me of the good old days. People were simpler and nicer then.”
Al Thani and the other guests reminisced about their trips to the desert in their youth.
One of them, Mubarak al-Naeemi, used to play for the Qatari football teams Al-Rayyan and Al-Gharafa in the 1980s. He said one of his teammates at the time was Hassan Afif, the father of the current Qatari national team star Akram Afif.
“I would play on the left wing; I was good, but Hassan could pass the ball to anyone, wherever they were on the pitch,” al-Naeemi told Al Jazeera.
distracted from the game
Qatar conceded an early goal, setting the tone of the game.
So instead of wasting time paying too much attention to what was a poor performance by the Qataris, the guests at the majlis went back to thinking about the changes they have seen in the last 20 years in Qatar, particularly since the World Cup was awarded to the Gulf country in 2010.
It is well known that Doha has changed rapidly since then. But listening to the guests here, who saw that change, it’s clear how radically different things are.
“Look at these metro stations,” said one of the guests, Sultan Johar. “Four floors underground. It’s amazing. We got the World Cup, but even if we hadn’t, these changes would have been enough. When you get off at each stop, you see something new.”
Al Thani points out that the change has gone beyond the infrastructure and has extended to the people.
“Let’s be honest, we didn’t have a strong sense of nationalism or national identity before,” Al Thani said. “The World Cup, this project, has helped build this. Now you even hear the other Arabs who have grown up here, they speak with a Qatari accent. They have started to feel that pride of living in Qatar.”
But that doesn’t mean this group welcomes all changes.
They remembered that the Qatar of their childhood and adolescence was less developed, but the people were more resilient and could survive on their own.
And not only that, the weather was cooler and the rains were still rare but more abundant than today, they said.
Now, as many World Cup guests have discovered, temperatures are warmer than they used to be.
“It’s climate change and it makes us worry about the future,” Johar said. “We never understood things like conservation or environmental protection. Now we go on a trip to the desert and collect the garbage. We get it now, but look at the trees. They have disappeared in some areas due to lack of rain. And the animals that we used to hunt, now you have to go deep into the desert to find them.”
On TV, Qatar conceded a second and then showed little in the second half, with the game ultimately ending 2-0 to Ecuador.
Most of the majlis guests had left long before the end of the games, and jokes were already pouring into everyone’s phones, mourning the loss.
At the end of the day, the outcome wasn’t too important to the guests here, but the symbolism of such a significant event coming to their doorstep was. And yet, once this tournament is over, the majlis will continue, and these friends will still gather together, wondering how much more they will see their country change in the years to come.