In December 2022, I hastily wrote and submitted this piece to the Los Angeles Times for publication a few days before the World Cup 2022 Final. They decided not to publish it, so I’ve decided to do so here instead. I’ve added a little—including photos—to round out the piece to make slightly more up-to-date.
I first taste the sweet burn of karak in the clusters. It’s 2:30 AM in Cluster M of Barwa Barahat Al Janoub in Qatar’s southwest Al Wakrah Municipality on Day 3 of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. By the time I drain the double-shot-sized paper cup of spiced tea, the lag of nearly 24-hours of transit vanishes. Compulsive thoughts that have raged since long before the flight—about whether I should attend a tournament made possible by modern day slavery in a country where people I love are unwelcome—slow down. Karak, I decide, will be my anchor as the chaos begins.
These accommodations clusters, where I stay with an American friend living in China and our two Argentine friends, are almost as close to the border of Saudia Arabia as they are to central Doha. These are not the flashy five-star hotels of expat places like the West Bay and The Pearl. Neither are they the docked cruise ships along The Corniche. They are the cheapest accommodation on offer from FIFA for the tournament. At $40 per night per person, the clusters are even more affordable than the much-maligned shipping containers and zip-up tents covered in other publications.
The clusters are a football zombie apocalypse. The clusters are a cozy sleepaway camp in the desert for soccer fans. They are terrible. They are wonderful. Like the tournament itself, the clusters are many things at once. Shoddily built and functional. Staffed by impossibly kind workers and volunteers. One gentleman from Pakistan tells me with pride that his country’s contribution to the World Cup is the manufacturing of Adidas’s Al Rihla matchday soccer balls. I call the clusters home for two weeks. I survive, mostly, on karak.
Karak is the national beverage of Qatar. A chai-like milk tea with spices, usually cinnamon and cardamom. Most are sweetened considerably, some versions come with saffron. The price climbs as high as 15 Qatari Riyal ($4.12 USD) for a cup of karak inside the World Cup stadiums. In the clusters and on the streets of Doha, the same cup costs 1 QR ($0.27 cents). Karak replaces beer in my soccer watching diet. I go overboard. At home in Los Angeles, I prefer unsweetened tea. In Qatar, I look out at the desert in this impossible city-sized country and remember I am not home. Then, I go find more karak.
I appreciate karak with a man from Hyderabad, India in the clusters. He tells me he was compelled to seize the chance to watch Lionel Messi play in person and the World Cup being held a mere few hours away by plane made it possible.
I sip karak sat between two men dressed up as US presidents at one match. The one dressed like George Washington is from Ventura and explains how he used to work in construction. In one breath, he talks about the beauty of Al Bayt stadium and the workers who died to make that beauty possible.
Late one night, I drink karak and split an order of French fries with a Portugal fan from Basra, Iraq. When he asks where I’m from, I watch his smile fade. He longs to go visit Los Angeles during the World Cup 2026 but knows it is unlikely the U.S. would grant him a visa with his Iraqi passport.
I go to ten matches and drink karak at them all. In between games, I distribute fourteen small tins of my preferred Yame green tea as gifts. A taxi driver from Mauritania who has no interest discussing soccer but is delighted to talk tea. A Filipino journalist working for a Chinese media company. A stadium security guard who lets me celebrate Messi’s goal against Mexico in the aisle. I recommend leaving the tea in a water bottle and refrigerating it overnight for cold brew to counter the afternoon heat. It’s not karak, I explain, but it has its merits.
I can still taste the karak when I start writing this piece. After only two weeks I feel exhausted and ill. Journalist Grant Wahl dies following the Quarterfinal between Argentina and Holland. Wahl made a statement by wearing a rainbow shirt in the tournament. He wrote and spoke about being exhausted and ill as the marathon of the World Cup continued. A man works himself to fatal exhaustion doing what he loves in a stadium built by workers who died so people could follow a game they loved to fatal exhaustion. It breaks my heart. It breaks the hearts of all the journalists I know in the sport.
The prevailing takes about this World Cup persist: the tournament is pure sportswashing and greenwashing evil; and those who oppose it are Islamaphobic and racist. Whataboutism abounds. German National Team players cover their mouths to show they are being silenced. The Qataris display photos of Mesut Ozil and cover theirs to show hypocrisy. This World Cup is either soaked in blood and hate or a harmless antidote to seasonal holiday depression.
Some nuanced questions do emerge. “Who does the world cup belong to?” asks Brian Philips of the Ringer on his excellent 22 Goals podcast. Nick Miller inquires in The Athletic about what the World Cup means to the Middle East and Arab world. “What does it mean to try to go home after you’ve left?” asks Jasmin Garsd during her bilingual adventure through her and Messi’s shared Argentine diasporic journeys.
This all takes place before we witness the greatest player of all time crown himself as such in what most footballer lovers consider the greatest final of all time. I cry. It washes away the paradoxes and with them, the karak.
But now, almost two months later, has room cleared an anti-take?
What I experience is a World Cup of paradoxes. A World Cup that should have never happened and yet it is happening. The least welcoming World Cup to many and the most welcoming to others. A World Cup where there seems to be everything everywhere all at once. A Tea Cup.
Upon my return home I’m asked how this World Cup compares to the four others I’ve attended. I talk about tea instead. Karak came with the migrant workers from South Asia when the discovery of petrochemicals began to change the little Connecticut-sized Arabian peninsula called Qatar forever. In other words, Karak is Qatar’s national drink even though the people who brought it there, prepare it, and serve it cannot become fully respected in Qatar society much less become Qatari nationals themselves.
What tea and football do as good as anything else on the planet is bring people together. Now that this tournament has ended, so full of good tea and good football, am I alone in feeling so pulled together and so pushed apart? Is this paradox allowed? If so, does it expire?