World Cup 2022: How the event in Qatar will be unlike those that came before

By Doug McIntyre
FOX Sports Soccer Writer

Editor's note: The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar begins Nov. 21, 2022, only on FOX networks. All this week, we'll offer a series of stories and videos counting down to the one-year-out mark.

When the 2022 FIFA World Cup kicks off in the tiny Middle Eastern Gulf state of Qatar just over a year from now, it will be uncharted territory for a number of reasons.

You probably already know some of them. Qatar 2022, the 22nd edition of men’s soccer’s wildly popular quadrennial celebration, will be the first held in the Middle East and just the second to be staged in Asia.

It will be the first World Cup played in the fall and winter. Because of the scalding desert temperatures in Qatar, the monthlong tournament was moved from its traditional summer window. The final at the 80,000-seat Lusail Iconic Stadium is set for Dec. 18, 2022 — one week before Christmas. 

This World Cup will also be the first hosted by such a small country. Forty-eight U.S. states are bigger than Qatar by square mileage. The only ones smaller are Delaware and Rhode Island.

Those facts and other factors — for the first time, major European leagues will have to accommodate a World Cup in the middle of their seasons — illustrate the contrast between the next World Cup and the 21 that came before it. 

The big question is: How will those differences impact the actual competition and how players and teams fare on the field?

Let’s count the ways.

Preparation

Traditionally, national teams have plenty of time to prepare for the most important event in the sport. The English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A all typically start in late August and wrap up their seasons the following May.

In World Cup years, after a short break, players then reported for training camps. Those lasted several weeks and included three or four tune-up matches before the games began. Coaches often didn’t finalize their 23-man rosters until they’d seen all of their players train and compete up close.

They won’t have that luxury next year.

Because Qatar 2022 takes place in November and December, FIFA had to figure out how to make the impacted leagues whole. In the end, global soccer’s governing body agreed that clubs wouldn’t be obligated to release players summoned by their countries for the World Cup until Nov. 14 — a mere week before the Nov. 21 opening match at Al Bayt Stadium.

That won’t leave any time for friendly matches ahead of the main event. The last chance for pre-World Cup dress rehearsals will come two months earlier, in September, when FIFA’s match calendar calls for a two-game window in which international squads can play friendlies.

Travel

Getting to Doha won’t be easy: It’s a seven- to eight-hour flight from most of Europe and almost double that from much of North and South America. Add the short turnaround between players’ last club games and their first in Qatar, and the travel becomes even more taxing.

Once teams recover from the jet lag and settle into their opulent surroundings, though, moving around the host country will be a breeze. The eight stadiums that will be used in the World Cup are all located within a 30-mile radius of the capital.

That’s a major difference from the previous two men’s World Cups, held in Russia and Brazil. In those countries, some venues were thousands of miles apart. This time, there will no time zones to cross. None of the participants will get back on a plane until flying home.

That matters. At Brazil 2014, the U.S. squad logged 8,880 miles in the air during the group stage before being outlasted by Belgium, which had traveled only 1,000 miles, in extra time in the Round of 16.

At that same World Cup, eventual champion Germany built their own training facility in Brazil specifically to reduce travel. They flew just 1,300 miles in the first round and, perhaps not coincidentally, went on to become the first European team to win a title on South American soil.

Performance

Once in Qatar, the ease of getting to and from games should keep athletes near their physical best. But another factor should also help ensure that the level of performance remains sky-high.

Some World Cups have been wars of attrition. Indeed, after playing 50-odd matches with their clubs in the preceding nine months, the best players on the planet can be banged up or burned out before what for many of them is a once-in-a-career opportunity.

In 2018, for example, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah suffered a shoulder injury in the Champions League final, the last match of the 2017-18 club calendar. He wasn’t fit enough to appear in Egypt’s first World Cup encounter in 28 years. (Salah did play in the Pharaohs’ final two matches in the group stage.)

Injuries can strike at any time, of course. But the sort of nagging ailments caused by overuse are less likely to occur when a player is in peak midseason condition, which most of those bound for Qatar will be, than toward the end of a long season.

Just ask France’s Dimitri Payet. In 2018, the attacking midfielder strained his hamstring in the Europa Cup final just weeks before the festivities in Russia. Payet didn’t recover in time, was left off Les Bleus’ squad and watched as his teammates hoisted the World Cup without him.

One of the most prominent soccer journalists in North America, Doug McIntyre has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams in more than a dozen countries, including multiple FIFA World Cups. Before joining FOX Sports, the New York City native was a staff writer for Yahoo Sports and ESPN. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.