The failure of Al Sadd, which is the core of the Qatar national football team, for the second consecutive year in the Asian Champions League has raised questions about its impact on Al Annabi’s first World Cup participation when it hosts the first event in the Middle East at the end of this year.

Qatar, led by Spanish coach Felix Sanchez, hopes to qualify for the second round and not become the second host country to be knocked out of the first round after South Africa in 2010. He is optimistic about the opening match against Ecuador, which he lost four years ago in a friendly match (4-3) in Doha.

After meeting Ecuador on November 21 at a home stadium with a capacity of 60,000 spectators, the host nation will face African champion Senegal and the strong Netherlands.

– “Local prestige and outward disappointment!” –

Although runner-up Al-Duhail and Al-Rayyan made it to the round of 16 of the Asian Championship, the shock to fans and the media at Al-Sadd’s departure was great, leading Al-Sharq newspaper to write: “Al-Sadd is locally prestige and outwardly a disappointment !”

Al-Sadd, two-time Asian champion (1989 and 2011) and local league 16 times (a record), said goodbye to the continental championship for the second consecutive season, content to finish third in his group behind Al-Faisaly of Saudi Arabia and Nasaf from Uzbekistan.

Al Sadd players make up about 70% of the starting lineup for the team that won the 2019 AFC Asian Cup for the first time in its history in the UAE, and also had a good run in the 2019 America’s Cup and a good US Gold Cup last summer, where it reached the semi-finals .

However, on the eve of his participation in the Arab Cup, in which he finished third at home late last year, the Al-Adaam index recorded a decline in the results of the European World Cup qualifiers in which he participated. as a guest, after suffering heavy defeats in October and November against Portugal 1-3 and 0-3, and Ireland and Serbia with the white quartet respectively, winning two consecutive victories over Luxembourg and Azerbaijan, three draws and five losses against qualifiers.

In his last match against European teams, he beat Bulgaria 2-1 and then drew goalless against Slovenia in Doha in a four-way tournament he hosted last March.

– Games are coming from 2019 –

Abdullah Mubarak, one of the stars of the Qatari team at the 1981 World Youth Championships and runner-up to West Germany, finds no connection between Al-Annabi’s decline and the leader’s continental failure, and he tells AFP: “Al-Sadd players” make up 70% of the team’s starting lineup and have not stopped playing since the 2019 Asian World Cup. There is mental and physical fatigue and the team is oversaturated.”

Turki Al-Ali, CEO of Al Sadd, acknowledged that the team was mentally unprepared: “We, as management, bear the most important part of the responsibility. We have not mentally prepared the team and players for this tournament.”

Al-Ali also announced that the renewal of Spanish coach Javi Gracia, who replaced his compatriot Javi Hernandez, is “not in discussion at the moment”.

– We need to distribute the players –

In turn, Mohammed Mubarak Al-Mohannadi, a former member of the Qatar Football Association, told AFP that the reasons are “weak local competition, which is limited to Al Sadd and Al Duhail, and Al Sadd players continue to play matches for more than two years and not to receive negative rest.”

In turn, Mubarak feared that the team would lack replacements for some influential players such as defender Hoki Bualem and cornerback Abdel Karim Hassan, 2018 Asian Player of the Year, and Akram Afif, 2019 Asian Player of the Year.

– Matches similar schools –

But Wissam Rizk, the former star of the dam and Annabi, puts the exit of the continental dam in the context of “the fall in the level of some citizens and professionals.”

The current coach of Umm Salal states that “all players are responsible, international and experienced”, emphasizing that “The Football Association has developed an excellent and thoughtful plan to achieve optimal representation in the World Cup.”

According to Ali Al-Salaat, the team’s media coordinator, the Annaby players selected by Sanchez will not be with their clubs during the league kick-off on August 1, indicating the team will be heading to training camps in Europe that will include matches with leading international teams.

– Develop competitiveness –

In order to ensure competitive and quality football and develop the professional level of the clubs, the Qatar Football Association has adopted a new strategy which is to reduce the number of clubs participating in the league from 12 to 10 starting from 2023. /season 2024.

While Rizk saw that downsizing clubs was useless as the player base would shrink, Al-Mohannadi believed that there were conditions that needed to be met in order to increase competition, the most important being the quality selection of foreigners and coaches, hoping that the Central Committee intelligence approved by the Federation will succeed in developing competitiveness through choices based on efficiency and real values.