The World Cup has reached the outskirts of Qatar

Indian Mohamed Sazzad, 30, is anxious. With his pirate shirt and Argentina’s alviceleste, Messi’s name on his back, he walks from one side to the other in the Plaza Mall shopping center. The anxiety is because he bought a ticket to see his favorite team in the World Cup face Mexico.

“It was online. It hasn’t arrived yet. It’s coming these days,” he says.

Sazzad works in a shop that sells seeds and chocolates. His brother is the owner, and he also wears Argentina’s uniform.

It doesn’t take long, and Syed Iltakher Uddin, 30, from Bangladesh, approaches. With a shirt and cap from the Brazilian national team, he hugs Sazzad. Syed is also an employee at Plaza Mall, selling cell phone accessories. There are two other employees there. Both have the yellow and CBF shield on their chest.

“I couldn’t get tickets to see Brazil. That’s too sad. I’m going to see the games at the Fan Fest anyway”, regrets Syed.

Asian Town, the neighborhood that concentrates migrants who moved to Qatar to work in construction and infrastructure projects, has never seen anything like it. That’s a place where workers gather to find some distraction, goof off and badmouth their bosses. There should be no room for the World Cup on that agenda.

In a matter of minutes, drumming begins, which leads to a parade of dozens of people wearing Qatari shirts and flags, beating drums and singing along the corridors of the shopping center. Those who hadn’t noticed the movement come out to see.

“This has never happened here,” said Mohamed Anees, 27, who has lived in the Asian Town area for five years.

This Sunday (20th) was the moment when the World Cup, the event that should have been reserved for the wealthy minority of the Arab nation and tourists, reached the outskirts of Qatar.

“Everyone is excited about the start of the World Cup. If you ask people here, most of them support Brazil or Argentina. I’m from Bangladesh. If you go there, you’ll find that the Brazilian team has huge supporters” , says Ismayil (he didn’t want to say his last name), 39, since 2015 in Asian Town.

At the end of the parade of fans screaming and banging drums, there is a sequence of buildings, all the same, that blend in with the white earth floor. The buildings are surrounded by high walls and have security guards at the entrances. A housing complex of 10,000 units brings together the residents of the area.

About 15 kilometers away from the center of Doha, it is the region that most concentrates poor migrants from Qatar. Around 50,000 people live there, almost all of them employed in civil construction or in the service sector.

The crowd is made up of expats from other Arab nations, Indians, Filipinos, Nepalese, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans. Not by chance, the region of Asian Town is also called Labor City (city of work, in English). Those born in Qatar, an absolutist emirate ruled by the same family since the 19th century, form the financial and social elite.

The project’s original name was West End Park. It was changed to Asian Town to reflect the origin of the companies that the government wanted to attract to this area, considered the most industrial in Doha.

Despite the football crowd, the cricket stadium, the most popular sport in India and Pakistan, is visible.

The story of those who live in the region is to send money to the families who stayed at home. The most popular businesses in the neighborhood are exchange offices and currency remittances. In more menial jobs, the average salary is US$ 200 a month (R$ 1,069), and with that money many need to support themselves and help people in their homeland. Part of the residents helped in the construction or reformulation of the eight stadiums used in the World Cup in Qatar.

Ismayil tries to say, in his broken and faltering English, that supporting the Brazilian or Argentine teams means being close to winning. Something that is not very common for them. Messi and Neymar are idols, an image they can only dream of. The older ones claim to have started supporting the yellow shirt and wearing it because of Ronaldo and winning the 2002 World Cup.

The parade in support of Qatar in the World Cup, hours before the defeat to Ecuador in the opening match, was happy. There was not a drop of rebellion in her. It was a defense of the status quo. One poster had the image of Emir Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani. He was called “leader” and “legend”. Another carried a photo of Gianni Infantino with the phrase “the honored president of FIFA”.

Those who were wearing Brazil or Argentina shirts followed this demonstration with just their eyes. They don’t root for the Cup hosts. When asked why, they just laugh. Qatar is not their home. Supporting two South American teams connects them more with friends and relatives in their homeland than rooting for the team in the land they chose to live in due to financial need.

“We got together to watch the World Cup and cheer for Argentina. I love Messi, but I like Argentina for what my memories of my youth in Sri Lanka represent,” says Ahmad, 28, who works at a shoe store and he also sells typical food from his country.

Asian Town has for the last few years been associated with the problems of Qatari society. It was a place built far from the center so that migrants could just stay there, isolated. Local workers who were involved in the construction work for the stadiums were subjected to exhausting working hours, the heat of over 50º C in the summer and “kafala”, the legislation that prohibits immigrants from changing jobs unless their boss tells them to. give a letter of authorization.

The World Cup, in this neighborhood, shouldn’t be this popular.

But despite that, this Sunday, for a few hours, Asian Town became a stand.

“Talking about football every now and then brings people together here too,” says Indian Arjuna.

With the Portugal shirt, he wears the number 7, Ronaldo’s name on the back because, as he says:

“Cristiano is god”.