Asian Cup Finals

Qatar hosts some notable sporting events throughout the year. We've been to the 2010 Women's Tennis Association Championship (Clijsters v Wozniacki) and the 2011 Qatar ExxonMobil Open semifinals (Nadal and Federer, but not playing each other). The Qatar Masters fires up in a few days. Tonight wrapped up the Asian Cup which dominated most of January in Doha. Here are some interesting observations from tonight's trip to the Finals (Australia v Japan)...

• Buying tickets is not as easy as you think... I tried online, then in person twice (sold out), then lucked out on the third try just two days before the finals. One would assume these would be nosebleeds, but we were on the equivalent of the 45 yard line in row 16. They were awesome. Even better, they were only $16.48/person.
• Clearly telling fans where to park or where to enter the stadium area by foot would have been just too easy. We like a challenge, right?
• Apparently you can just park your giant camel in handicapped parking.
• Women are segregated to their own security line which was interesting for a few reasons... 1) sadly watching men breeze through their lines, 2) women and their giant purses requiring inspection, 3) the super light pat-down I got, 4) the instruction to skip the metal detector (so much for safety, folks!).
• For what may be the first time ever, our section was the one immediately past the gate, then immediately up the stairs. Convenient!
• We were seated in the Japan section and their fans are crazy!
• Thunder sticks were called pong bong sticks and they are annoying as ----!
• Qatar has yet to discover the price gauging Americans are used to at sporting events. We parked for free and bought 2 sodas and a Snickers for $4.12 total.
• On the down side, we had 2 groups of friends with tickets in hand not make it into the stadium because the gates were closed unexpectedly 30 minutes before kickoff. Police in riot gear were on hand. Found this lovely quote... "Reporters on the ground indicated that the final had been oversold, reporting that officials were dismissive of the problem saying that fans should have arrived earlier to the game." We must have just made it in before the gates were closed. With all eyes on Qatar after the 2022 World Cup win, this is clearly a fail.
• Just like in the States, attendance figures are posted on the Jumbo-tron. Interesting that they were able to do this given the gate mess and the fact that our tickets weren't even scanned and we didn't go through any turnstiles.

All in all, we had a fun time tonight but were bummed to hear our buds didn't make it in.