As FIFA World Cup 2022 of Qatar comes to the final match between France and Argentina, the whole tournament can now be said to be a great memory for Qatar and for the Muslim world.
This Sunday, Argentina and France will face off at 6pm local time at the iconic Lusail Stadium to mark the last match of FIFIA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. It is expected that more than 80,000 fans will come to the stadium to watch the most popular game during the tournament.
From day one, Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup drew attentions and as the tournament went on, it only added to the marvels of this biggest and most important football event in the world, making FIFA president to call this round of games as “the best ever”.
This edition of the World Cup in Qatar has been “the best ever”, FIFA president Gianni Infantino told reporters on Friday, adding also that “many people from around the world have come to Qatar and have discovered the Arab world, which they didn’t know or they knew only for what was portrayed to them”. Infantino also thanked Qatar for the exceptional hosting of the tournament and described it as “the transformative legacy of this World Cup”.
Good to know that when Qatar was named as host of the 2022 World Cup back in 2010, it was selected ahead of bids from the United States, South Korea, Japan and Australia. The tournament is therefore being held in an Arab Muslim country for the very first time, which is surely a major turning point for Qatar and the Arab world in their relationship with international sport.
Morocco, a Muslim country, made remarkable history
Although some other countries were also present in the tour Monet, it was Morocco who could make history by becoming the first African and Arab team to go to the semi-finals. Their unprecedented success has become a source of inspiration for football fans and can very well help the country prepare an even better team for the next round of the games in 2026.
But it was not only football that Moroccan players promoted in Qatar. Their success also sparked an Arab and Muslim unity wave in the region and worldwide, where even non-Moroccans supported Morocco.
The brilliant performance by Morocco even made Infantino to praise the team, saying that “Morocco’s performance has been exceptional. Fantastic … They played from the heart but also with an undeniable quality. Reaching the semifinals of the World Cup doesn’t happen by chance.”
Palestine, the winner of the games in Qatar
Another aspect of marvelous unity among Muslims, which was also carried on by Morocco football players and football fans, was the unconditional and non-stop support for Palestine on and off the pitch. In Morocco’s victory over Spain, for example, players held up the Palestinian flag in their celebrations at the end of the game.
This is while videos of Israeli reporters getting a chilly reception from Arab fans in Qatar went viral from the early days of the tournament.
Although Palestinians had no official presence at the Qatar 2022 World Cup, the Palestinian flag was everywhere and impossible to ignore, flown in the streets, waved in the stadiums and draped on the shoulders of some of football’s biggest stars. All this wholehearted and massive support made Palestine’s Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour to say a memorable sentence about the Palestine cause when he noted that “the winner of this World Cup is already known. It is Palestine”.
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