DOHA: There’s a good chance the World Cup will go from bad to worse for the Qatar team if the players don’t conquer their nerves when they face African champion Senegal in their second group match.
The Qataris are already the first hosts to lose the opening game of a World Cup after they were overwhelmed by their nation’s biggest sporting occasion in a 2-0 Group A defeat to Ecuador on Sunday.
That puts them in danger of also being only the second host after South Africa in 2010 to be eliminated in the group stage. But what about losing every game?
Or the dismal prospect of failing to score a goal at their home World Cup? That would likely pile even more criticism on FIFA’s decision to award the World Cup to the small but very wealthy Gulf emirate that had never qualified for the game’s biggest tournament before winning the right to host it 12 years ago. “Maybe we felt a bit overwhelmed by the responsibility.