• Former Brazil captain Cafu speaks with Qatar2022.qa
• The two-time World Cup winner says Qatar 2022 will be a “dream come true”
• He is serving as as a Global Ambassador for the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ is less than two years away, and with every milestone reached, excitement continues to build in the country and across the region.

Football’s showpiece event means many things to many people, especially those who have lifted the coveted trophy. And one player who has special memories of the tournament is former Brazil captain Cafu.

The 50-year-old won the World Cup on two occasions during a storied career that included trophy-laden spells with Sao Paulo, AS Roma and AC Milan. The former defender is also Brazil’s most capped player with 142 international appearances.

As a Global Ambassador for the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, Cafu believes Qatar 2022 will deliver the kind of memories he was fortunate enough to experience as a player on multiple occasions.

As the most-capped player in Brazil’s history and a winner of the FIFA World Cup™ in 1994 and 2002, how important do you think it is for this tournament to come to the Middle East and Arab world for the first time?

Cafu: The World Cup is a tournament for the entire world and so every country has the right to bid and play host to it. For passionate fans across the region, this must be very exciting. Having the tournament in your neighbourhood will offer millions the chance to attend it for the very first time. And knowing what Qatar is planning in terms of infrastructure and fan experience, this World Cup will be exciting for everyone.

Having been a part of so many World Cups, what legacy will Qatar 2022 have on the region and beyond?

The organisers behind this edition of the World Cup have made sure that its legacy will be felt around the world. Their commitment to sustainability is something that will have a positive impact on the environment and set the bar for how mega sporting events should be organised in the future. This includes plans to repurpose parts of stadiums after the final whistle to support sporting infrastructure in developing countries.

Qatar 2022 will take place in November and December. How will the timing of this tournament impact the quality of play?

The timing of the tournament means that many players will be in peak fitness, because they won’t be joining their national teams after a long club season. Combined with the perfect weather conditions that Qatar is known for at that time of year, we are set to see some exciting football on the pitch. There will be no excuses for the biggest stars not to shine.

This will also be the most compact World Cup in modern history, with all the stadiums in close proximity and teams able to stay in one place throughout the tournament. How will that be different from other World Cups?

For those that love watching football, whether it’s on TV or in person, Qatar 2022 will be a dream come true. Four group stage matches a day, all played at stadiums that are close to each other, means that potentially you can attend two matches in one day. That’s something that hasn’t happened in the modern era of the World Cup.

For the participating teams, they will be able to stay in one team base and avoid any long travel between matches. This will undoubtedly give players more time to train, rest and be better prepared for what matters most – the football!

Of all the tournaments you played in during your career, why is the World Cup so important to you?

It’s what every player dreams of – to be a world champion. You play with and against the best players in the world. It’s where you want to be as a player.

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• Rising star Lassina Traore plays for Ajax and Burkina Faso
• Scored a quintuple for his club last October, a first since Marco van Basten
• “We’ve got what it takes to achieve big things.”

Lassina Traore had a very big hand in Ajax Amsterdam’s 13-0 thrashing of VVV-Venlo on 24 October last year, scoring five goals and setting up three more. In the process the man from Burkina Faso became the first Ajax player to score as many goals in an Eredivisie match since Marco van Basten struck six against Sparta Rotterdam back in 1985.

It was no mean feat for a player who will turn 20 this January and who has only broken into the first team this season. Yet for anyone who has been following his performances with Ajax’s reserves since arriving in Europe two years ago, it perhaps came as less of a surprise. A powerful and lethal finisher and a consummate team player, Traore is repaying the faith that the Dutch giants showed in signing him from their former South African feeder team Ajax Cape Town [now known as Cape Town Spurs].

As Traore explained, however, it took time for him to make his mark in the Netherlands: “It was tough and the standard was really high. I realised how hard I would need to work. I remember one training session in the United States where I had Matthijs de Ligt right on my back. He couldn’t have marked me any tighter. He was strong like me and very quick. It was the first time for me and he got the ball off me every time, though things would be different today,” he added with a smile.

Keen to learn and a hard worker, Traore made every effort to adapt to his new life on and off the pitch. Luckily for him, his arrival at Ajax coincided with their thrilling run to the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League in the 2018/19 season.

“It was amazing,” he recalled. “I felt so proud. Even though my first year was really tough, I was really happy to be part of that adventure.” It was an adventure in which he made his first appearance on the bench in the dramatic semi-final second-leg defeat to Tottenham.

A family affair

One good reason for Traore’s rise to prominence is the fact that he hails from a family that has football in its blood. His mother was as passionate about the game as anyone and has been in love with it since her childhood days. “Her parents didn’t want her to play football and she had to make sure they didn’t catch her training and playing matches,” said the young striker. “Then, when she started to make some money from it, they understood that it was serious and let her play.”

And play she did, becoming the captain and playmaker of Burkina Faso’s women’s national team. “I went with her everywhere when I was young,” said Traore. “I was there when she was training and when she was playing. That’s where my passion for the game comes from. She gives me career advice but when it comes to things out on the pitch, she knows that I know what to do. She’s taught me how to rest, how to lead a healthy life, and how to focus the day before matches.”

His father also played football, though not at the highest level, while his uncle, Rahim Ouedraogo, played for Burkina Faso before founding a club, Rahimo FC, in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in 2012. Now one of the country’s leading clubs, it runs an academy that Traore joined at the age of 11. “I learned everything I know there,” said the Ajax front man, who fed his dreams of glory by watching the national team in action and following the exploits of his two favourite players: Didier Drogba and Emmanuel Adebayor.

International dreams

Traore is also the cousin of Bertrand Traore, the former Ajax and current Aston Villa forward, and sees him as something of a big brother, after the role he played in helping him adjust to his new life in Europe. The two played side by side for their country in 2017, when Lassina won his first cap at just 16. Despite his tender age, he began his international career with a bang, scoring three goals in his first two outings with the Stallions.

The Ajax star is part of an exciting new generation of Burkinese players who are building on the progress of the last ten years and are full of confidence heading into their next African engagements. First up come the last two qualifying matches for the 2021 CAF Africa Cup of Nations in March, followed shortly afterwards by the start of the preliminaries for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™.

As Traore explained, the Stallions have their sights set on reaching the world finals for the very first time: “The people of Burkina Faso are starting to believe we can do it. They know we’ve got a team that can go far, especially with the new generation that’s coming through. They’re linking up well with the experienced players who reached the Africa Cup of Nations final in 2013 and finished third in 2017. We’ll get our reward as long as we stick at it, and we’ve got what it takes to achieve big things.”

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• Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic speaks to FIFA.com
• Slovakia, Russia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta await in World Cup qualifying
• “2018 was special and that you can’t repeat that every two or four years”

The 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™ represented a milestone for Croatian football, a summer fairytale that will likely never be forgotten. Under Zlatko Dalic’s stewardship they made it to the Final, where they succumbed to a 4-2 defeat by France in a spectacular encounter.

‘The Blazers’ subsequently underwent a period of transition as stars such as striker Mario Mandzukic and penalty-stopper supreme Danijel Subasic decided to call time on their international careers following that particular highlight. However Dalic, who has been at the helm since 2017, remained, determined that his path had not yet come to an end.

The 54-year-old successfully integrated talented youngsters into the side and led the national team to comfortable qualification for UEFA EURO 2020, which will take place in the coming summer. Before then, however, they face another serious test when the qualifying campaign for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ begins in March. FIFA.com spoke to Dalic about the upcoming challenges, the difficulties 2020 brought, and the coronavirus pandemic.

FIFA.com: Mr. Dalic, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta are waiting on your to Qatar. What do you think about your group?

Zlatko Dalic: There are no easy groups because qualifying for the World Cup is a dream for every nation. We have a tough group but we accept our position as a favourite in the group – we’re the best seeded team and we are current World Cup silver medallists. We truly respect all opponents in the group.

We’ve played against Slovakia in qualifiers and they know us very well – they proved their quality by qualifying for the EURO in play-offs. Russia was a very difficult opponent for us at the World Cup, there they beat Spain, which says enough. Slovenia is improving under the coach Matjaz Kek, who worked in Croatia and knows us very well, and our neighbours will be highly motivated to prove themselves against us. Finally, Cyprus and Malta are also among best teams in their seeding groups, so we’re looking at a challenging group. However, we believe in our quality and we feel confident ahead of the qualifiers.

What are the challenges in these qualifiers?

Obviously, schedule will be very tight in March and September with three games in one week. It leaves almost no time for training, and with the long travels, it’s very challenging for the players to play three so important games, especially with their club schedule also being quite exhausting. It will be important to plan very well and try to manage our resources the best that we can, to protect the players while going for the best results. However, it’s the same for everybody, so we won’t use that as an excuse.

The other issue is the fact that we have the EURO in the middle of the qualifiers, which is unusual, and it will also present a problem for all EURO participants. For instance, you are starting the qualifiers with one team, but it’s possible that after EURO, some players retire from the national team, so you have to make important changes in the middle of the cycle.

What do you know about Qatar?

I had a privilege of working in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia and UAE, so I am familiar with the culture and people in that region. I have very nice memories of my time in the Middle East and still have many good friends there. Therefore, I am certain we’ll have a great World Cup in Qatar because the hosts will do everything in their power to show us their great hospitality.

Do you think it will be a very special World Cup?

Yes, I think it will. Hopefully, the pandemic will be over, and we’ll have a chance to enjoy the World Cup with fans from across the world. It will be a first World Cup in the Middle East, but also the first World Cup where fans could attend two games in one day – all the stadiums are so close to each other, and I think that will create a great atmosphere – something like Olympic games. Stadiums are going to be great, and again, I am sure the hosts will do a great job in organisation, security and everything else, to make sure fans have a great time.

You reached the Final in 2018. Is there a lot of pressure now?

I think people understand that 2018 was special and that you can’t repeat that every two or four years. I think we had more pressure in 2018, when we knew it was probably a last chance for some of our senior players. Now, our pressure is to qualify – we want to be there, among the best.

Once we’re there, we know that we have the quality, talent and self-belief to beat anyone on a given night, but we also understand that Croatia is not in the first row of favourites – that’s reserved for the biggest teams, such as France, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, England, Italy, Belgium or Portugal. Of course, as we showed in 1998 and 2018, that doesn’t mean Croatia can’t make a historic run, but I don’t think we have pressure to do that.

Some Croatian players retired after Russia 2018. Can you tell us something about your team right now?

Yes, our team changed quite a lot since Russia. Players such as Rakitic, Mandzukic, Subasic and Corluka are no longer with us, and we have talented youngsters coming in and taking on bigger roles. We used the UEFA Nations League in 2018 and 2020 to give a chance to several new players and we got through EURO 2020 qualifying cycle quite well.

Luka Modric is still our leader, and with Brozovic and Kovacic alongside him, we still have one of the best midfields in the world. Senior players such as Perisic, Vida and Lovren give us much needed experience, and we also have young guns, such as Brekalo and Vlasic, who proved their potential, so we feel pretty good ahead when it comes to our future.

Next year will be special as EURO 2020 will be played mid-World Cup qualifiers. What can your team achieve there?

We fulfilled our dreams in Russia – that was unforgettable for everybody involved, and for our fans as well. But it also gives us an extra motivation because we know how special it is to make the whole nation so joyful and proud. With the current pandemic going on, and so many lives lost, we understand that the whole nation will look at us to make them happy once again, and it’s our obligation to do our very best to try to replicate that magic from Russia.

As I mentioned before – there are a few teams that are, objectively, ahead of us at the moment. But, we’re pretty confident in our quality and we surely won’t admit to anyone they’re better than us until they prove that on the pitch. And that’s very difficult to do, because not only we have the quality, but we also play with so much passion and togetherness for Croatia.

What is your overall assessment of 2020? A tough year especially because of Covid-19?

I said during our last matches in November that I can’t wait for this whole year to finish. First of all, it is devastating that so many people across the world lost their lives. Also, so many people and businesses were economically impacted by lockdowns and other measures. And then you have football without fans, which is just not the same and it lacks that emotion that full stadiums provide.

Finally, with all these measures, before the games we thought more about the tests and who’s positive or not, than about tactics, conditioning or anything football-related. It’s just a terrible year and hopefully, we will all have a much better 2021. I just wish good health for everyone.

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In the presence of His Highness the Amir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, along with an enthusiastic physically distanced crowd, Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium hosted the 48th Amir Cup final on Qatar National Day to become the fourth fully operational FIFA World Cup 2022™ tournament venue to be inaugurated. Today’s inauguration took place exactly two years ahead of Qatar’s 2022 final.

The stadium – which will become the new home of Al Rayyan Sports Club – follows Khalifa International, Al Janoub and Education City in being declared ready to welcome the first FIFA World Cup™ in the Middle East and the Arab world. The 40,000-capacity venue will host seven matches during Qatar 2022 up to the round-of-16 stage.

Following a spectacular pre-match ceremony featuring music, cultural performances and stunning visual effects, along with a riddle recited by presenters Hamad bin Mohsen Al Naimi and Ali bin Rhema Al Marri, the final between Al Sadd and Al Arabi kicked off.

Among the dignitaries in attendance was FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who praised the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) for the successful completion of another Qatar 2022 tournament venue.

“The Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium is a wonderful football stadium,” said Infantino. “The atmosphere is incredible, with the seats extremely close to the pitch. Even with a physically distanced crowd, I could feel the passion of the fans. I am sure this will be a perfect football arena in 2022 when it hosts matches during the World Cup.”

He continued: “I would like to congratulate Qatar and HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on the completion of this venue. The country is very well prepared for the next FIFA World Cup and on track to host a memorable instalment of the tournament – the first in the Middle East and the Arab world.”

Built on the site of the Al Rayyan Sports Club’s former stadium, the venue is adjacent to the Mall of Qatar and within walking distance of Al Riffa station on the Doha Metro’s Green Line. The stadium’s most striking feature is a glowing façade, comprised of patterns that characterise different aspects of Qatar: the importance of family, the beauty of the desert, native flora and fauna, and local and international trade. A fifth shape – a shield – brings together all the others, representing the strength and unity that are particularly relevant to the desert city of Al Rayyan.

HE Hassan Al Thawadi, the Secretary General of the SC, said: “The inauguration of Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on Qatar National Day is another important milestone on the road to 2022 and a triumph that is testament to the efforts of everyone involved in putting on such a successful event during a global pandemic. The stadium and surrounding precinct are sure to be a source of pride for Al Rayyan Sports Club and everyone who lives in this historic city.

“Looking ahead to 2021, we look forward to unveiling more stadiums in the new year, as we ensure that all tournament venues are delivered well in advance of the big kick-off in 2022,” added Al Thawadi.

Nasser Al Khater, the Chief Executive Officer of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 LLC, said: “Tonight was an immensely proud occasion for Qatar and the people of Al Rayyan. It was also another opportunity to test our readiness for Qatar 2022, with thousands of fans enjoying the spectacle, despite the challenges caused by the ongoing pandemic. We look forward to developing the Qatar 2022 fan experience further next year when we host more major tournaments, including the FIFA Club World Cup and FIFA Arab Cup – events that are sure to excite football lovers in Qatar, across the region and around the world.”

The match was attended by a host of other famous footballing faces, as well as AFC President HE Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, CONMEBOL President Alejandro Domínguez and UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin.

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