Saudi Commuters Descend on Doha for an In-and-Out World Cup

Her cousin, Luluh, said the match would be her first-ever sporting event — a prospect that got infinitely more exciting with the victory over Argentina.

“I was watching with my son and he was terrified because of my screaming,” she said.

Most Saudi fans arrived to the airport as they presented themselves at the stadium: decorated in green, and sometimes holding a flag that would be worn as a cape. You could tell the ones who had flown in just for the day, at least from Riyadh, because they had been handed free green scarves at the airport before departing.

Even those in traditional Saudi dress — a white full-length thobe for men, and a gown-like abaya for women — accentuated themselves with green or chose green-tinted abaya.

At the stadium, though, entire rows of men sat in crisp white thobes among swaths of fans wearing green team jerseys — a loud sea of green and white speckled with Polish red. Every time al-Shehri or al-Dawsari touched the ball with an opening toward the goal, the fans lifted in their seats in anticipation.

The sudden tournament success of the Saudis has rallied the region, maybe in unexpected ways. The Saudis led a Gulf-region blockade of Qatar in 2017, only ending it in 2021, and there is some natural anxiety as Saudis watch tiny Qatar raise its profile.

But this is the first World Cup held in the Middle East, and at the opening ceremony, Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani sat with the Saudi leader, Sheikh Mohammed.

“Brothers,” a thobe-wearing man named Mohammed said at the airport, describing the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even with the blockade. “Same people, different country.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/sports/soccer/saudi-arabia-world-cup-qatar.html