Portugal-Qatar

Narrated journalistic account of a symbolic World Cup event hosted by an Arab nation for the first time, creating much globalism imagination...and dish!

One more sports-globalism 'fanfiction' in anticipation of the hyped Qatar World Cup [2022]. Thanks for reading, 

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My name's Amlan Satan and I'm covering the Qatar World Cup [2022], the iconic sports-soccer international tourney which takes place every year, celebrating the great world nations (e.g., Argentina, France, Germany, Portugal) which boast incredible teams showcasing swift coordinations of offense-defense maneuvers to strike their rolling-ground ball into the opponent team net-goals before time runs out! This year, the World Cup takes place in Qatar, an Arab/Muslim country, and it'll be the first time ever an Arab/Muslim nation will host the iconic soccer international tournament.

The venues/arenas/stadiums for the Qatar 2022 event, which are refurbished and cast for the numerous World Cup games between highly-competitive nations like Belgium and Brazil will hopefully celebrate what makes soccer a sport of globalism-rhetoric and proportion, as less wealthy/powerhouse nations like Argentina, Portugal, and Cameroon are able to showcase incredible athletic skills to provide their respective countries terrific media-spotlights for future tourism! Well, I have to say, the event-planners for the Qatar Cup 2022 are determined to celebrate just why soccer is a media-market friendly globalism messaging modern sport/activity. The Qatar stadiums are really cool!

Now, the fact that the Qatar 2022 event will be the first social/global 'event' or activity hosted by a Muslim nation (with these 'proportions') holds outstanding symbolic value for this post-9/11 capitalism-tribulation era, after anti-Western fundamentalist (Al Qaeda) Islamic/Muslim terrorists destroyed the globalism-commerce symbolic World Trade Center (NYC) by crashing commercial passenger planes into the iconic American skyscrapers. People, including myself, ask the question, "Will Qatar 2022 finally get us out of that 'evil shadow' or 'scar' of 9/11?"

Now, I've been a photojournalist for the Bugle (USA) since I graduated from the Ivy League (Dartmouth), and I consider this 'mission' to cover the Qatar 2022 soccer-world event a special 'chance' for me to present my skills at news-coverage and globalism 'storytelling' for modern media-markets. I feel like Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise)!

We all know that outside America, 'soccer' is actually called 'football' since it's a game involving foot-kicking of a ground-ball on an expansive grass field of play (usually!). In America, football is of course the throwing/running/holding/tackling game of helmeted rough-and-tough super-athletes. In the rest of the world, 'football' is what we call 'soccer' in the USA and re-presents the world imagination(s) of incredible teamwork oriented natural play of ground-ball foot-striking into target-goals and creates much hype by fans of national teams (e.g., Portugal) who're eager to celebrate what they consider to be a real human dance.

As I begin to cover the Qatar Cup 2022, I noted that the highly-ranked teams Belgium, France, and Argentina are doing very very well, but a relative 'dark horse' or less-ranked but achieving/ambitious world-soccer team, Portugal, is slowly rising through the tournament-ladder and surprising everyone with key upsets over rival/competitive nations, including Italy, Netherlands, and Germany. When Portugal defeats England in the SemiFinal to secure a final-game matchup with touted Argentina (who's defeated #1 Belgium), everyone's wondering if Portugal finally has the 'd-formula' to win its first World Cup title (in the first-ever World Cup hosted by an Arab nation!).

I interview Portugal's star (Ronaldo) after he lifts the Qatar trophy in front of world-media cameras/reporters and ask him, "Do you think you're the best-ever Portuguese soccer-celebrity?" to which he replied, "I consider myself simply 'in-league' with the likes of the greats of Portugal before me (Eusebio, Figo), and I'm honored to win this 'world-laurel' in the first-ever Muslim-hosted World Cup football championship games!"

I take Ronaldo out to a special media-recorded Portuguese meal after his fantastic/unusual Qatar World Cup victory, and he tells me how he'd grown up praising the great Portugal star Eusebio who first splashed Portugal onto the world-soccer 'stage' by announcing his greatness with success but never obtaining that World Cup title. Ronaldo and I enjoy delicious Portuguese food, prepared by the soccer team's exec-waitstaff, and I realize all this 'Arab-soccer nation-hosting hype' has lived up to the allure, since Ronaldo has finally done for under-represented Portugal what the likes of Eusebio/Figo couldn't --- bring home the real turkey!

Soccer is a game of swiftness/confidence, and in the Qatar Cup [2022], we saw it become a game of worldly importance, and I myself cheered on Portugal's great achievement(s), hoping this would indeed be the Bugle (USA) news-story worthy of the sort of globalism-rhetoric celebration that reminds us that social activities marketed in the media-era can really be a 'thing' of great dollars. God bless soccer (or is it 'football'?)!

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)