A friendly shawarma shop unwittingly serves up comfort during a difficult World Cup

Chris Jones is in Qatar covering the men's World Cup for CBC Sports.

People who spend a lot of time on the road develop coping strategies. One of the lessons I've learned — from astronauts, actually — is that you can't fight your environment. You need to accept the new rules, new rhythms, of your temporary home and adapt to them. It's never the other way around.

This has been a strange World Cup for a host of reasons. Normally, the tournament is held across an entire country, so you're constantly on the move. I didn't realize it in South Africa or Brazil, but the travel days are helpful. They give your brain a break. Your only job that day is to get on a plane.

Here in Qatar, in Doha, the pace has been relentless. At a normal World Cup, if you really mash it, you might cover 14 games. I did that many in this year's group stage.

It's been fun, but it's also been harder on my system than I thought it would be. I was a much younger man when I started covering big soccer tournaments. This is the first time I've found things physically tough.

My friend Grant died at Lusail Stadium the other night, and for all his devastated friends here, this World Cup has now become emotionally and psychologically challenging, too.

That's an understatement. The last 36 hours have been brutal.

I was talking to some friends at Saturday night's game between England and France, where Grant's picture and some flowers sat where he should have been, and we're all re-evaluating our lives.

One of them said he's decided that this is his last World Cup. Another heard that his son had scored his first goal in high-school hockey, and he'd missed it. He looked on the verge of tears, telling me. I expect this will be his last World Cup, too.

Forgive me for