Qatar national football team
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For current information on this topic, see Qatar national football team results. |
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| Nickname(s) | Annabi (The Maroon) | ||
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| Association | Qatar Football Association | ||
| Confederation | AFC (Asia) | ||
| Head coach |  Bruno Metsu |
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| Home stadium | Khalifa International Stadium, Jassim bin Hamad Stadium | ||
| FIFA code | QAT | ||
| FIFA ranking | 86 | ||
| Highest FIFA ranking | 51 (August 1993) | ||
| Lowest FIFA ranking | 107 (December 1999) | ||
| Elo ranking | 76 | ||
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| First international | |||
.svg){kind=small} Bahrain 2 - 1 Qatar  (Bahrain; 27 March 1970) |
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| Biggest win | |||
Qatar 8 - 0 Afghanistan  (China; 13 September 1984) Qatar 8 - 0 Lebanon  (Qatar; 27 March 1985) |
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| Biggest defeat | |||
 Kuwait 9 - 0 Qatar (Kuwait; Date Unknown, 1973) |
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| AFC Asian Cup | |||
| Appearances | 7 (First in 1980) | ||
| Best result | Quarterfinals, 2000 | ||
The Qatar national football team is the national team of Qatar and is controlled by the Qatar Football Association. Despite an estimated population of 1.3 million, Qatar remains one of Asian football's enigmas, particularly at the youth level.
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[edit] History and overview
Football was brought to Qatar in the 1940s and 50s by oil workers. Soon after the formation of the Qatar Football Association in 1970, the national team played its first match against Bahrain. Qatar has long been the continent's under-achievers, and the fact remains that they have rarely made it past the group stage in continental championships and have never represented Asia in a FIFA World Cup. However, the tiny Persian Gulf country, where the foreign working forces outnumber the local inhabitants, has been an unpredictable quantity, especially in youth competitions. They advanced to the final of the 1981 FIFA World Youth Championship, losing to the then West Germany. They qualified for the FIFA event after finishing second in the AFC Youth Championship, losing to Korea Republic in the final. Then again, in 1990, Qatar finished fourth in the FIFA U-17 World Cup and prior to qualifying for the championship, finished as champions in the AFC U-17 Championship in the same year.
In the AFC U-17 Championship, Qatar finished as runner-up at least five times in 1984, 1986, 1992, 1994 and 1998.
At the senior level, Qatar had won the Gulf Cup twice in 2004 and 1992. On both these occasions, Qatar was the host. The national senior team has also qualified for the Asian Cup finals, at least eight times in 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2007.
Qatar made their name as the darkest horses in the Asian Zone's final qualifying round for France 1998 when they beat the likes of China and Iran to enter the last match against Saudi Arabia needing just a point to book an automatic qualifying place. However, just one match away from their first-ever place at the FIFA World Cup, they lost out as the Saudis went through 1–0.
They made it to the final qualifying round again four years later, but were totally outpaced by Bora Milutinovic's China team, who topped the section to progress to their first FIFA World Cup. Frenchman Philippe Troussier took the reins after Korea–Japan 2002 and he injected some new blood into the side. Understandably, it took time for the inexperienced new-look team to develop into a winning unit, with failures coming in both the 2004 Asian Cup and the qualifying campaign for Germany 2006.
Though Troussier was sacked after the disappointing World Cup-qualifying campaign, the team that he formed was to be the backbone of the team that won the Gulf Cup in 2004 and the Asian Games gold in 2006 under the guidance of Dzemaluddin Musovic.
Bosnian Musovic stepped down in the wake of Qatar's disappointing campaign in the recent AFC Asian Cup 2007, where they crashed out after the group stage with two points from three matches. The job of coaching the under-performing team then fell to Uruguayan Jorge Fossati, who faces the hard task of leading the team to 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
In order to sustain their success, the Qataris have once again turned their attention to youth development, particularly through the ASPIRE Academy for Sports Excellence which was launched in September 2004.
[edit] World Cup record
[edit] Group 1
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[edit] Group B
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[edit] Asian Cup record
- 1956 to 1972 - Did not enter
- 1976 - Did not qualify
- 1980 to 1992 - Round 1
- 1996 - Did not qualify
- 2000 - Quarterfinals
- 2004 to 2007 - Round 1
- 2011 - Qualified
[edit] Gulf Cup of Nations Record
Best result :2 times Champions (1992,2004)
- 2009 - Semi Finals
[edit] West Asian Football Federation Championship
- 2008 - Semi-Finalist
[edit] Current squad
The following players were called up for the Libya friendly match and for the 2009 Gulf Cup of Nations from 4 January to 17 January, 2009.
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[edit] Recent call-ups
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1 Ruled to be ineligible to compete for Qatar having represented Brazil at youth level [1]
[edit] References
- ^ FIFA reject calls to kick out Qatar FIFA; 24 June 2008
