2022 - FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the Saudi football revolution

DUBAI: On Nov. 20, 2022, billions of viewers tuned in to watch Qatar take on Ecuador and make history as the first Arab country to host the FIFA World Cup.

The moment marked a turning point for football in the Arab world, and Saudi Arabia in particular as it set the stage for a revolution in the sport that would be fueled just days later by an unforgettable victory.

Hosting the World Cup was a monumental achievement for Qatar, after more than a decade of preparation and significant investment in infrastructure. The tournament showcased state-of-the-art stadiums, cutting-edge technology, and a commitment to delivering an unforgettable experience for fans from all around the world.

However, the significance of the event extended well beyond football as Qatar, together with the rest of the Gulf region, seized the opportunity to present itself as a modern, dynamic hub at the crossroads of tradition and innovation.

The tournament not only broke new ground by taking place during the winter, it also introduced the world to the warmth of Arab hospitality and culture, challenging preconceived notions and fostering a greater understanding of the region.

For the second World Cup in a row, and the second time ever, four Arab teams were taking part: Qatar, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.

On the pitch, Morocco shocked the football world by reaching the semi-finals, defeating Belgium, Canada, Spain and Portugal along the way before losing to reigning champions France. It was finest-ever performance by an Arab nation at the World Cup.

While hosts Qatar would disappointingly suffer an early exit, Tunisia at least managed the distinction of beating France 1-0 in the group stages.

For Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, the World Cup became a catalyst for the country’s football revolution, ignited by a historic result on the third day of the tournament.

On Nov. 22, as the great Lionel Messi stood scratching his beard in bewilderment, Salem Al-Dawsari celebrated a goal with his traditional somersault. Half of the fans at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar were thrown into utter delirium. The rest were shocked into stunned silence. Across Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and, indeed, the globe, screams of celebration could be heard in the vicinity of every television screen.

The world had just witnessed the greatest moment in Saudi football history, and arguably the most memorable at that point by any Arab nation on football’s biggest stage.

Just seven minutes into the second half of the Green Falcons’ opening match of the competition, Al-Dawsari scored what turned out to be the match-winning goal against eventual champions Argentina.

Messi had given the South Americans a 10th-minute lead from the penalty spot, and a procession to a comfortable victory was expected by most. But the Saudis had other ideas. After a goosebump-inducing half-time team talk from French coach Herve Renard, footage of which would later go viral, the Saudi players emerged after the break a team inspired.

Saleh Al-Shehri equalized just three minutes into the second half, followed by Al-Dawsari’s intervention five minutes later. Despite Argentina’s best efforts, some heroic defending helped secure what is undoubtedly the nation’s greatest football moment.

The superlative winning goal and the famous victory it claimed were worthy of any World Cup. In hindsight, the game also marked the moment Saudi football truly emerged onto the global stage.

Though Renard’s team would not progress to the round of 16 in Qatar, a revolution in Saudi Arabian football was nevertheless about to unfold.

Just over a month after the game, and only 13 days after Messi raised the World Cup trophy when Argentina beat France on penalties in the final, the world of football was again shaken to its foundations by the announcement that Saudi Pro League club Al-Nassr would sign Cristiano Ronaldo during the winter transfer window.

Overnight, Saudi Arabia became the center of attention in the football world. What was going on in the Kingdom?

Long before that seismic event in late December 2022, Saudi Arabia already boasted a footballing history, at the domestic and international levels, that few countries in the Middle East and Asia could match. In fact, high-caliber foreign footballers were not a rarity in the country.

As far back as 1977, Al-Hilal had signed Roberto Rivellino, a member of the magical, World Cup-winning Brazilian team of 1970. More recently, the likes of Bafetimbi Gomis, Abderrazak Hamdallah and Anderson Talisca numbered among the outstanding foreign players who made the Saudi Pro League their home.

The signing of Ronaldo, however, was on a whole new level. And where the former Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus star goes, others follow. The arrival in the Kingdom of the Portuguese legend opened the floodgates and what had been a steady stream of foreign signings became a deluge.

In the summer of 2023, after the Saudi sovereign Public Investment Fund acquired majority stakes in four of the country’s top clubs, Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad, Al-Nassr and Al-Ahli, along with other investments in the game, the Pro League became the hottest destination for some of the world’s best players.

Sadio Mane and Aymeric Laporte followed Ronaldo to Al-Nassr. Riyad Mahrez and Roberto Firmino moved to Al-Ahli. Fabinho, N’Golo Kante and Karim Benzema joined then-champions Al-Ittihad. And, in the capital, the arrival of Neymar, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic bolstered an already formidable Al-Hilal side.

Saudi clubs were not signing players at the end of the careers looking for one last big payday, they were having their pick of superstars from some of Europe’s top clubs.

And that was just the beginning. Many more would follow in the summer of 2023 and during the January 2024 transfer window.

It was not long before Ronaldo proclaimed that the Saudi Pro League was better than Major League Soccer in the US and Ligue 1 in France. Those who would have bristled at such a suggestion just a year earlier had to sit up and take notice.

The wider social changes that were sweeping through Saudi Arabia at the same time meant the rise of football in the country was also felt in the women’s game, which had barely existed in any organized form in the Kingdom just a few years earlier.

A Saudi women’s national team was established in 2022 and soon earned its place on the FIFA rankings. The Saudi Women’s Premier League was founded the same year and, like the men’s Pro League, now boasts some of the world’s top talents.

While the influx of superstars was changing the face of Saudi football on the pitch, a lot of game-changing work was also being done behind the scenes by the nation’s football authorities, with some very notable results.

In 2027, the Kingdom will finally host the AFC Asian Cup for the first time. The Green Falcons will be among the favorites to win the trophy, for what would be the fourth time in their history but the first since 1996.

But even that exciting announcement was surpassed when Saudi Arabia was awarded hosting rights for the 2034 FIFA World Cup. Fifteen futuristic stadiums are already in the pipeline for what will be the next World Cup hosted entirely by a single nation.

While many are speculating about what the tournament will look like a decade from now — with the competition expanding next year to include 48 teams, up from 32 — the chances are that by then, Riyadh, Jeddah and the other Saudi host cities will be even more familiar to foreign audiences than they already are.

Thanks to Saudi Vision 2030, the ambitious plan for national development and diversification, the sports sector has been a central part of the Kingdom’s remarkable progress in recent years. This is set to continue, thanks to similar advances in the business, tourism and entertainment fields.

One of the Vision’s crowning achievements looks set to arrive in the form of Riyadh Expo 2030, when the Saudi capital will throw open its doors even wider to the rest of the world.

By the time the World Cup rolls around four years after that, few people around the globe will be quite so surprised by any Saudi achievements in the way they were when Al-Dawsari made history that memorable evening at Lusail Stadium.

Qatar 2022 had changed the game. But it was just the beginning.

•  Ali Khaled is the sports editor at Arab News. He previously worked as a writer and editor at The National and GQ Middle East.