The Paper reporter Song Chengliang
Qatar loses, the DNA of Chinese fans moves [Report]
Qatar lost, extremely nervous, they were at a loss in front of Ecuador, such a performance seemed a bit embarrassing for the hosts.
But regardless of the victory or defeat of a game, it took the Qatari team less than 20 years to complete the transformation from a third-rate Asian to a first-class and even an Asian champion.
The Qataris insisted on one thing - youth training. Why isn't this worth learning from Chinese football?
The football field of the Sports Elite Academy.
More than $20 billion and elite colleges
The starting point of the rise of Qatari football is somewhat related to Chinese football.
In the 2004 Asian Cup in China, the national football team finished runners-up, and the Qataris were out of the group stage, and the Qataris were stimulated by the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qataris began to make up their minds to improve their sports - in this context, Qatar's Aspire Academy was born.
Exterior view of Sports Elite Academy.
In 2004, the Elite Academy was inaugurated on the Khalifa International Stadium, the main venue of the 2006 Asian Games, with the aim of training enough sports talent for Qatar.
Until now, when it comes to national sports (football) centers, the first few that come to mind are Clerfontaine in France, VPF in Vietnam and Aspeer in Qatar.
Qataris who are not poor in money invested a lot, and the entire academy cost more than 20 billion US dollars - 7 outdoor football fields, rehabilitation centers, medical laboratories, indoor stadiums, swimming pools, science laboratories, gyms, physiotherapy rooms...
It can be said that as long as you can think of things, it will not fall here.
Qatar then hired management talent from a number of German clubs and hired Roberto Orabe, who had been the head coach of Real Sociedad and Almeria, at a high price.
They also recruited a large number of echelon coaches, data analysts, etc. from the Barça echelon, and now the Qatari national team coach Alexis Sanchez came to Aspeer from the Barça echelon in 2006.
Qatar U19 won the Asian Youth Championship in 2014.
The Qataris then began a bold recruitment campaign with a simple and clear model – well-known scouts based in Arabia and Africa, selecting available talent from children under the age of 12 and sending them to Qatar for a layered selection.
The data shows that in the seven years from 2006 to 2012, Qatar hired 3.5 million scouts to scout players alone.
The Qatari also brought in Barça club youth vice president Cromore Colomo. The scout, who discovered today's number one star Lionel Messi on Argentina's field pitches, soon proposed to Qatar what is still known as "Aspire Africa", that is, the introduction of football talent from the barren African continent, which solved the inherent disadvantage of Qatar's insufficient population base...
Moez Ali is a Sudanese descendant.
Naturalization starts with the doll grab
Identify with Qatari culture
Many African countries share similar cultural and religious backgrounds to Qatar and are more convenient and natural to accept. In the first year of the program, Aspier visited 430,000 young Africans from 595 regions with good football skills in seven African countries.
Qatar offered the children generous conditions and extremely generous salaries, and if their parents were willing to come to Doha with their children, the government would provide them with jobs.
The first batch of Aspire Academy selected 800 children from home and around the world (all born after January 1, 1995), and finally selected 22 children.
In 2019, Qatar won the Asian Cup – 21 of the 23 were from Aspire Academy. It is worth mentioning that 10 of the 23 also hold passports from other countries, Moez Ali has Sudanese ancestry, the remaining two players in the semifinals, Hamid Ismail and Houthi, have Algerian and Egyptian ancestry, respectively, and Akram Afif, who scored a hat-trick, is of Yemeni descent.
Afif is of Yemeni descent.
Ali was discovered by scouts at the age of 7 and recruited to the Aspeer Academy in Doha, while Afif was 13 years old.
The rest of the players, Boudiaf are of Egyptian origin; Pedro Correa is of Portuguese born Cape Verdean descent; Abd Karim Hassan is also from Sudan; Bassam Ravi from Egypt; Fathi is from Egypt; Ali Afif is from Tanzania; Aladdin is also from Egypt.
Naturalization also starts with dolls, and to some extent Qatar has revised the model of mercenary naturalization that it once pioneered - as early as the beginning of the 21st century, FIFA's rules for the use of naturalized players were still relatively vague, and Qataris started the idea of players who played in the Bundesliga but could not enter the Brazilian national team.
Uruguayan striker Sebastian was Qatar's earliest naturalized player.
Striker Elton and left-back Dede were among them, and the Qataris had a naturalized list of up to 10 players at the time, and the Qataris' naturalization plan was boycotted by other Asian countries, so FIFA also changed the rules for naturalized players.
Even under these circumstances, the Qataris still recruited Uruguayan striker Sebastian and Brazilian midfielder Emerson, but as the younger players have grown, this purely mercenary model of naturalized Qataris is no longer used.
In the 2019 Asian Cup, Qatar defeated Japan 3-1 to win the championship.
The comprehensive promotion of "leaving Asia and joining Europe"
How to improve from youth training to senior national team? The Qataris have begun to try to leave Asia and join Europe over the years.
As early as 2012, the elite college launched a "H.O.P.E Project", which is actually an overseas training program, which allows the 1995 age players in the academy to disperse to the echelon of many professional clubs in Europe to train and compete with the same age players of these European professional clubs. At the same time, once a month, the whole team participates in warm-up competitions.
At the same time, Qatar has also acquired European minor league teams such as Belgium's Aupen and Austria's Linz, allowing a group of young players to get close to European football and briefly join.
The 1995 age group proved to be the foundation of Qatari football's progress, beating Chinese teams of the same age in the Asian Youth Championship, and defeating the Chinese team represented by Zhang Yuning and Wei Shihao in the 2018 U23 Asian Cup.
In 2019, Qatar won the Asian Cup by relying on the 1995 age group.
Because of the World Cup hosts, Qatar did not need to play the final round of 12 of the Asian qualifiers, and they finally reached an agreement with UEFA to join Group A of the European Zone of the World Qualifiers, and get the opportunity to play warm-up matches with Serbia, Portugal, Ireland, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan.
At the same time, Qatar also reached an agreement with CONMEBOL and CONCACAF - Qatar participated in the Copa America in 2019, although 1 draw and 2 losses were bottom.
In the World Cup, the Qatari team is still a little immature.
Qatar also participated in the CONCACAF in 2021, where they qualified with 2 wins and 1 draw in the group stage, defeating El Salvador in the quarterfinals, only to lose to the United States in the semifinals.
In 2023, after the World Cup, Qatar will continue to participate in the Gold Cup.
Perhaps, Qatar's current strength is not enough to win the World Cup, but this is their 20 years from scratch - if they have always adhered to youth training and European football thinking, the next 20 years Qatari team can still face the transformation.
Football has told us countless times that as long as you follow the rules of youth training, you will always see the day you win. The new chapter of Qatari football may start with this 0-2.
Editor of this issue Zou Shan