Qatar national football team

Infobox National football team
Name = Qatar
Badge = Logo-QFA.jpg
FIFA Trigramme = QAT
Nickname = "Annabi" ("The Maroon")
Association = Qatar Football Association
Confederation = AFC (Asia)
Coach = flagicon|France Bruno Metsu
Most caps =
Top scorer =
Home Stadium = Khalifa International Stadium
FIFA Rank = 81
1st ranking date = August 1993
FIFA max = 51

FIFA max date = August 1993
FIFA min = 107
FIFA min date = December 1999
Elo Rank = 76| pattern_la1=|pattern_b1=|pattern_ra1=
leftarm1=FFFFFF|body1=FFFFFF|rightarm1=FFFFFF|shorts1=FFFFFF|socks1=FFFFFF
pattern_la2=_whiteborder|pattern_b2=_collarwhite|pattern_ra2=_whiteborder
leftarm2=800000|body2=800000|rightarm2=800000|shorts2=800000|socks2=800000| First game = )
Largest win = Flagicon|Qatar Qatar 8 - 0 Afghanistan Flagicon|Afghanistan|1980 (China; September 13, 1984)
Flagicon|Qatar Qatar 8 - 0 Lebanon Flagicon|Lebanon (Qatar; March 27, 1985)
Largest loss = Flagicon|Kuwait Kuwait 9 - 0 Qatar Flagicon|Qatar (Kuwait; Date Unknown, 1973)
World cup apps =
World cup first =
World cup best =
Regional name = AFC Asian Cup
Regional cup apps = 7
Regional cup first = 1980
Regional cup best = Quarterfinals, 2000The 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, particular at the youth level.

History & Overview

Football was brought to Qatar in the 1940's and 50's by oil workers. Soon after the formation of the Qatar Football Association in 1970, the national team played its first match against Bahrain. Qatar have 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 Gulf country, where the foreign working forces outnumber the local inhabitants, has been an unpredictable quantity 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.

Bosnian Dzemaluddin 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.

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 reigns 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.

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.

World Cup record

*1930 to 1974 - "Did not enter"
*1978 to 2006 - "Did not qualify"
*2010 - Currently reached fourth round of Asian qualifying [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(AFC)#Seeding_for_the_Fourth_Round]

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"

West Asian Football Federation Championship

*2008 - Semi-Finalist

Foreigners on the Qatar Team

Because of its small population Qatar has included a small number of foreign players who have played in Qatar for more than two years, contrary to popular belief that the whole squad is made up of only South American and non-Arab African players. Many players who are born and brought up in Qatar have been mistaken as foreign players brought to the country by the FA for naturalisation. The following list is of all foriegn and non-Arab African players who play on the Qatar team.

* Fábio César Montezine - 1/1 Brazilian
* Marcone Amaral - 1/1 Brazilian
* Abdulla Koni - 1/1 Senegalese (played in Qatar for 9 years before getting citizenship)
* Mohamed Saqr - 1/1 Senegalese
* Qasem Burhan - 1/1 Senegalese
* Sebastián Quintana - 1/1 Uruguayan

Current Squad

Recent Call Ups

¹ Ruled to be ineligible to compete for Qatar having represented Brazil at youth level [ [http://www.the-afc.com/eng/articles/viewArticle.jsp_167280927.html FIFA reject calls to kick out Qatar] FIFA; 24 June 2008]

References

External links

* [http://www.qatarfootball.tk news about Annabi-www.qatarfootball.tk]
* [http://www.qfa.com.qa "Qatari Soccer Association"]