It was fully my intention to give a total boycott to Qatar 2022. It was relatively easy whilst in Istanbul with my girl, but occasionally we’d be in a restaurant or a coffee shop where someone was watching. A one man crusade seemed futile, and I became conflicted that this hideous event was increasingly going to be the last time I might see Messi or Modric in a World Cup. How dare FIFA and its money grabbing ideas endeavour to divorce me from the game I love, and yet I see more and more disappearing over the hill into a Corporate hovel. I can’t stop this direction, but I will always try to maintain standards, but if I broke that moral high ground to watch the conclusion of Qatar 2022, I am sure I did not unduly transgress against the wider view.
I have been lucky in life, I have been to five editions of the World Cup Finals, and while I have only seen six games at these events, it was an incredible privilege, and in the lead up to the unusual occasion of a winter World Cup Final, a recollection might be enjoyed.
1- SCOTLAND V COSTA RICA, GENOVA, ITALIA 1990
Four years earlier a bunch of my work colleagues and I had watched Scotland v Uruguay in the Burnt Post in Edinburgh. Such was the alcohol fused joy, we were celebrating Stevie Nicol’s goal. Of course he missed, we drew 0-0 against a team down to ten men for 89 minutes, and as we walked down Lothian Road, the chant was “why are we so bad”.
The footnote to this occasion was many years later in Plaza de Mayo in Bueños Aires, my mate Andy and I were the first Scottish fans to ever track down, and interview the wee hard man Jose Batista, who still retains the unwanted record of the fastest red card in World Cup Finals history. His chat was funny, back in the dressing room after being sent off, the kitman was still there, “you better hurry up, the game will be starting soon” he said, and couldn’t believe he’d been red carded!
Well if we were bad in Mexico, the 1990 opener in the Stadio Luigi Ferraris versus Costa Rica is in the Scottish pantheon of horror shows. The Central Americans were useful, but we created enough to have won, but on the day, the finishing was poor, and Costa Rica deserved their 1-0 win. They would also beat Sweden, qualifying for the last 16. Before this game, Andy and I, sporting our FC Pomona (the team we played for) t-shirts, got chatting to a Scotsman journalist, and in these pre-social media days, it was only upon returning from Italy we learned we’d made the front page of the paper! It was a torrid summer with Wallet Mercenary (Wallace Mercer) trying to merge Hearts and Hibs. One unlikely moment of humour as we waited to get in, Graham Bell’s mate was sporting a Hibs shirt (club shirts now rightly frowned upon) was embraced by a bloke sporting an unlikely Inverness Clachnacuddin shirt, a club nearing bankruptcy at the time. He quipped “we could both be out of business by the time we get home”!
There was a 24 hour drink ban in the vicinity of WC games that year, hooliganism was still rife, but of course the ban depended on who you are, and feeling down as we stepped off the train at Santa Margherita after the loss, no sooner had we set off down the hill to the hotel than we bumped into Rod Stewart nursing a pint with his bouncer at the doorway of a small bar. We chatted, took some keepsakes, but in these pre-digital days, it was only after the development of the film I realised Andy and Rod together hadn’t come out, ooops!
If the whole World Cup experience had been underwhelming, that was partly because I had already been to Genova to get the tickets for everyone in April and watched Vialli and Mancini of Sampdoria fame fluff their lines and miss a penalty in a 0-0 draw with Cesena. Curiously, I have never been back to the city since that traumatic Costa Rica loss! Note to self, it’s safe to go back now.
2- SCOTLAND V NORWAY, BORDEAUX, FRANCE 1998
This memorable occasion has already been extensively written about elsewhere on my blog, suffice to say it remains one of the football days of my life, and in terms of watching Scotland it will never be beaten. To have as many friends gathered and enjoying the day made it all more special. The fact it was Norway added to the sense of occasion for the Norseman in me, and affection between the two sets of fans was a constant theme as we gave the wonderful French city a day it will never forget either. The day after its local paper dedicated the front page praising both sets of visiting fans. It ended 1-1, and I ended fast asleep beyond Marseille on the floor of a night train back to Nice. I was a walking zombie the day after too, doubtlessly due to all the “pop and sweeties” at the carnival of Bordeaux, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
3-SWEDEN V NIGERIA, KYOTO, JAPAN 2002
Imagine travelling all the way across the globe, only to see Sweden score twice courtesy of a bloke earning his trade just along the M8 in Glasgow. We had flown out to Japan without any tickets, and the utter frustration of trying to get a couple of briefs eventually forced us into the world of a Russian tout, at a considerable price uplift too, but we’d come along away to return without seeing a game. He did try to slip us a “mickey”, handing us an envelope with tickets for Mexico v Ecuador in a city nowhere near Kyoto, but we immediately realised the sting and chased him down, when he willingly coughed up the right tickets, feigning error.
A dubious penalty for England, Beckham’s revenge for a Simeone flick and a wink in 1998 saw Argentina beaten in Sapporo, but what we hadn’t legislated for was a large portion of the English fan base heading south to Kyoto where we were staying. The locals tensed up, half my Argentine themed suitcase was unusable, and the humidity was horrendous. I didn’t enjoy the Far East experience as much as I had hoped, but that was potentially due to the football scenario in our vicinity rather than the country, although I am never likely to wish for a return just to see if my assessment was all wrong.
4- UKRAINE V SPAIN, LEIPZIG, GERMANY 2006
If I was going to do the German World Cup, it had to be in the East, the area of the country that I have the greatest sympathy for, as well as a lingering fascination with those DDR days. I have never watched a game in the “West”. Martin and I did a fabulous trip around a few old Iron Curtain lands, watching games in a variety of curious places. England v Trinidad in a bizarre retro hotel in beautiful Bratislava, and England v Sweden on a big screen in our Budapest hotel, distracted by the classy movements of a hooker at the bar, who always got her man, and the small knot of people pouring over the water polo on a small tv on the bar, where Hungary were losing to Serbia.
We had based ourselves in Dresden for the World Cup, pitching up in Leipzig on game day without tickets. We were chaperoned down a narrow passage, so to speak, by a lad who just needed a bag of jellied eels to complete the full cockney feel. He drove a hard bargain, and to this day it remains my most expensive ticket for a sporting fixture was acquired.
The game was played in the stadium now known as the Red Bull arena, built inside an older venue, where curiously the first leg of a Lokomotive Leipzig – Hearts tie had been played in 1976. Two weeks later dad and I pitched up at Tynecastle for the return, my first ever European game, and it has never been beaten for excitement since!
This World Cup encounter was a debut for Ukraine at a finals competition and we were in amongst them as Spain unusually put on a bit of a show, demolishing the debutantes 4-0. The curious footnote was that Ukraine would go further into the last 8 than Spain managed, where aside from the 2010 edition, the Spanish once again flattered to deceive.
Two trains heading off from the same platform in the opposite directions caught a number of Dresden bound and beyond fans out. Upon realising the error at Weimar, Mexicans and a number of Ukrainian fans had also been caught, but more traumatically for them, they were going to miss the Prague to Kviv night train home.
5- COSTA RICA V BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA V NIGERIA, ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA 2018
This was the first time since 1998 that I had tickets before I arrived, courtesy of the easier access to buying. I was naughty and went for two games! Again this amazing experience was documented in a previous romp, but it was made even more delightful by having a first opportunity to visit Tania in her beautiful home city. I was the luckiest man in the city having such a wonderful local host. St Petersburg is an amazing city, and while subsequent 2022 events have overshadowed everything that went before, Russia 2018 was the best World Cup from my limited five tournament roster experience. The local people truly took the competition to heart, and the South American contingents were constantly adding colour to a vibrant city.
Neymar was at his usual antics, as a Brazilian lass beside me incredibly sank 8 glasses of beer! As the tension grew at 0-0, people would laugh at the Brazilian’s antics to win fouls. It all got a bit much for one wifey a few rows behind me, who poured a beer over a South Korean woman! It all kicked off, a cat fight ensued. The undercover cops came to take the heat out of the situation, and thankfully no one was carted away. Brazil scored twice in added on time to break Costa Rica’s stout resistance, which was a shame. Meeting a group of El Salvadoreans was a particular high point for me.
Next up, Argentina needed to win and hope other results went their way when they pitched up to play Nigeria, who were still harbouring qualifying ambitions themselves. It was a tense night, this wasn’t vintage Argentina, but one man stood above them all, and gradually Messi pulled them round, and the winner when it came late into the game was the most extraordinary, spine tingling experience of my football viewing days. The Zenit Arena looks like a spaceship landed, and the thousands of albiceleste hinchas in the stadium nearly had it rising from the ground such was the incredible noise, what a celebration, something you can see from Qatar. Argentine fans are amazing. It was a celebration mixed with relief, Argentina had qualified just, and they went onto play France, now to be repeated in the World Cup Final 2022. I am sure we will take another 4-3 clash, albeit for me, a different outcome, as Messi deserves his legacy to have a world cup winners pinnacle on his CV.
It is my plan to visit Canada in 2026 to see more one game in the next World Cup, and then with hope South America 2030, the Centenary of the competition. At this point I will retire from thinking of attending any more such events. To see a World Cup Finals game in Uruguay is a fitting place to bow out. I just fear FIFA’s obsession with money will spoil this dream.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 