No Ronaldo? No Salah? No Italy?
The Qatar World Cup already has enough no-no’s without losing some of its star attractions.
But with qualifying poised on a knife edge, some big names and big nations are still scrambling to make the cut.
Mention ‘international break’ and football groans. But not this time.
The playoffs provide a rare bit of international jeopardy – a welcome change from the turnoff dross usually served up when the club game pauses.
In Europe, it’s either/or for Portugal and Italy who could meet in a playoff decider.
Ditto Africa, where Egypt and Senegal duke it out in a repeat of their Afcon final.
But the headlines in the build-up have been more about human rights than rites of passage.
Even managers and players have harked back to why and how a dust-blown speck on the edge of a desert got the hosting job in the first place.
With the tournament just eight months away – coming bang in the middle of the European season – it is worth revisiting.
And even players who were still in short pants in 2010 are paying attention.
Crying over spilt milk? More like a bomb hitting the creamery.
It’s a scarcely credible 12 years since the biggest cup upset of all time: Qatar 14 United States 8 in the final round of voting.
Qatar! Independent only since 1971, it has a population of 2.8m, only 330,000 of whom are citizens, the rest migrant workers.
If Putin doesn’t think Ukraine is a proper country, what would he make of this place?
It may struggle to get enough volunteers.
Don’t expect the migrant labourers to be keen. According to a Guardian investigation last year, 6,500 of them have died in 11 years.
Qatar doesn’t dispute the numbers, saying: “The mortality rate among these communities is within the expected range for the size and demographics of the population.”
But FairSquare Projects, who monitor these matters, counters: “A very significant proportion of the migrant workers who have died since 2011 were only in the country because Qatar won the right to host the World Cup.”
Another issue is the scant football heritage only recently boosted by naturalised players.
The US has well over 50 cities with more than 330,000 people and super sports facilities in most of them.
Japan and South Korea, who jointly hosted the 2002 finals, were also in contention along with Australia which got one vote. Sports-mad, climate conducive Australia.
Then there’s the heat. With summer temperatures in Qatar soaring to 55°, even the camels take a timeout.
Another essential requirement box they couldn’t tick.
But Qatar had already embarked on building state-of-the-art stadiums, including indoor air-conditioning and some mind-blowing architecture.
Football’s confederations couldn’t agree on an alternative, Qatar wouldn’t budge so here we are.
World Cup finals are meant to be festivals of football and humanity. People mingle, eat and drink together, and football and beer are like curry and rice.
Qatar may be a place of futuristic buildings, but stone-age beliefs. A holiday destination it is not.
Its attitude to the LGBT community would mean another box unticked.
And then there’s women and alcohol!
Indeed, if you’d come up with the least suitable hosting candidates among FIFA’s 2011 countries and territories, Qatar could have won without resorting to bribery.
It’s why Netherlands manager Louis van Gaal said this week it was “ridiculous” to stage the finals there.
And why England boss Gareth Southgate took time to explain the hosts’ attitude to human rights to his players.
Yet it’s Qatar where we’ll be watching the 22nd World Cup kick off in November.
It was a blatant heist. Liquified gas money siphoned off into the accounts of several of the FIFA executive committee’s 22 members.
Many have been found guilty, others have died.
Ex-FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been shamed and disgraced for other shenanigans but, to be fair, voted for the US.
Likewise ex-UEFA president Michel Platini who voted for Qatar albeit with ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy holding a musket to his head over a deal for French war planes.
It didn’t just stink, as toxic stitch-ups go, this was football’s Chernobyl.
There was predictable outrage. Human rights groups shone an even more piercing light onto the conditions of migrant workers. Football vowed to find a new venue.
But nothing was done.
Season after season, Qatar carried on building its fantastic stadia. And hosting other events, notably the World Athletics Championships in 2019.
The best football could do was shift the tournament to the winter at the cost of a massive disruption to Europe’s domestic campaigns.
There will not be the heat but what about the extra wear and tear on the players, not to mention ripping the heart out of the season with a six-week shutdown?
The pandemic has already increased players’ workload and this is likely to peak just when they’re supposed to be at their peak.
It means we could get a World Cup with many absentees and sub-par performances.
Yet it could have been worse: Current FIFA president Gianni Infantino wanted to increase the number of teams to 48!
It will be 48 in 2026 which will be held in the US along with Canada and Mexico. But they do have a little more space.
Qatar is talking about compromises such as having cruise ships with alcohol on sale and softening some draconian laws.
But if they think that’s enough to create a traditional World Cup atmosphere, they are sadly deluded.
Whoever survives the playoffs and reaches the finals, we’ll have a tournament of sorts.
But it’s hard to think it will be a vintage World Cup with so many no-no’s.
The playoffs in front of raucous crowds this weekend may be as good as we get.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.