Year-In-Review: Qatar silenced critics with a historic World Cup fiesta

To many people, the recently concluded 2022 World Cup in Qatar will go down in history as one of the greatest tournaments to have ever taken place.

A recent BBC Sport poll looking back at the six World Cup competitions staged this century saw the tournament dominate the leaderboard by 78%. Football fans hailed it as ‘the best of the century’.

Trailing Qatar was the 2002 World Cup staged in Japan and South Korea receiving 6% of the vote. The 2014 Brazil tournament secured 5% leading both Germany 2006 and the 2018 tournament in Russia which both secured 4% of the overall vote.

It begs the question. Why is it considered the greatest tournament to have taken place this century and maybe even, since the World Cup started?

This tournament was unique in so many ways. For a start, this was the first time that the tournament took place in the Arabic World.

Despite the backlash that followed on for years by fans and the media alike that followed following FIFA’s decision to grant Qatar the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup, the tournament lived up to its billing.

State of the art technology was put in place in order to ensure that everyone involved in the tournament would not be subjected to the supposed unfavorable climatic conditions in the Gulf region.

Talk about air conditioning, that made temperatures within the stadia at reduced to just  68°F, no matter the conditions outside.

Talk about construction of a stadium with containers, as we saw with the stadium 974, which hosted just 7 matches before being dismantled and the parts being donated to other countries.

Second, this was the first time that the tournament took place in November and December. This was mostly because the climatic weather conditions are much more unbearable in Qatar in June and July.

The regular football season in Europe had to be put to halt so that players were be available for their countries during the tournament.

This tournament will go down in history as a tournament where many records were set and others broken.

Morocco made history, becoming the first ever African side to get to the semi-finals of a World Cup, where they gave a spirited fight in the 2-0 loss to France.

The French National team were able to break the supposed “defending champions curse” after managing to get out of the group stages and get all the way to the final.

There was also a sudden change in the amount of stoppage time added in Qatar. The 2022 added-time average, 11.6 minutes was a 59 percent increase over 2018 and a 136 percent increase over 2010.The aim was to account for every second the ball went out of play during the tournament.

To say that Argentina’s ill tempered quarter-final clash against the Netherlands was a fiery encounter would be an understatement.

The match surpassed the 2006 encounter between Portugal and the Netherlands  as the match with the most bookings in World Cup history.

Eight of the 17 cards drawn were issued to Argentinean players and an additional two given to head Coach Lionel Scaloni and support staff Walter Samuel.

Despite also setting an equal-record number of scoreless draws at the tournament with seven, Qatar 2022 became the highest-scoring FIFA World Cup in history with 142 goals netted across the 64 matches.

Leveling with Portugal in the Battle of Nuremberg match, Holland received the equal most bookings in a World Cup match in the process with nine yellows.

Host nation, Qatar, created history by becoming the first ever host side not only to lose it’s opening group stage match, but to lose all their three games. They only netted one goal and conceded 7, and never seemed to give it a fight.

The elephant in the room is definitely the final between Argentina and France, where Kylian Mbappe broke multiple records.

The Paris Saint-Germain man smashed the previous record of fastest time between two goals scored by a single player in a World Cup final. His 81st and 83rd minute strikes against Argentina surpassed the Brazilian Ronaldo's 2002 record of 12 minutes between goals.

He hit another milestone with his third goal, as he became only the second player in history to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final after England's Geoff Hurst in 1966.

He also joined Brazil’s Vava, Pele, Germany's Paul Breitner and fellow countryman Zinedine Zidane as one of only five players to score in multiple World Cup finals, following his stunner in the 2018 final against Croatia. However, he also set the record for most goals in finals match overall with four.

This tournament will forever be remembered for some shocking results produced throughout.

You can think of Saudi Arabia’s shocking victory over eventual champions Argentina in their opening group stage match. How about Japan’s spirited fight twice in a row from a goal down to win 2-1 against both Germany and Spain?

What about Brazil’s cruel penalty shootout exit at the hands of Croatia who equalized deep in stoppage time with their only shot on target to force the game to shootouts?

What about Morocco’s run to the semi finals, knocking out tournament favorites Spain and Portugal?

Who would have foreseen France’s comeback from 2-0 down to force the game into a 3-all draw in the final against Argentina after Le Celeste had run Didier Deschamps’ side ragged in the first half?

Lionel Messi finally became a World Cup winner at the age of 35 after years of trying and failing for the side. In the process, he cemented his place as arguably, the greatest player of all time to many people.

It was pleasing to see him not only parading his second World Cup golden ball, but also lifting it while wearing a bisht, the black cloak that was put on him by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Jumping up and down in joy on the platform amidst the confetti and flares after scoring two goals in arguably the greatest final of all time, it is certainly the perfect way to see his last years at the highest level.

The standards established at the 2022 World Cup are without a doubt, very high. The 2026 World Cup is already set to be unique in its own right as it will be the first time that 48 teams will be taking part in the competition.

It will also be the first time that 3 countries will be co-hosting it after Mexico, Canada and the USA won the bid in 2018.

FIFA expects to earn $11 billion in the 2026 World Cup cycle with a 48-team men’s tournament in North America set to deliver a big increase in revenue amid ongoing uncertainty about the exact match schedule.

The previous World Cup saw FIFA earn 7.5 billion, nearly one billion more than what was initially budgeted by FIFA in 2018.