One of the great British idioms that isn’t easily recognizable anywhere else in the world is “throwing a spanner in the works.”
A “spanner” is a wrench and the “works” refer to the inner mechanisms of a machine, so the literal phrase refers to a wrench being tossed into a machine to stop it from working. What it means in usage is an unexpected problem that has prevented a predictable outcome. Over here, you’d probably say “somebody threw a monkey wrench” into the plans.
On Saturday in Santa Clara, Calif., Qatar threw a spanner in the works of Group B at the FIFA World Cup. Widely expected to be the team that finishes at the bottom of the group, Qatar earned a 1-1 draw with the presumptive group favourites, Switzerland, thanks to a stoppage-time own goal created by Boualem Khoukhi (and officially credited to Hamburg defender Miro Muheim).
The result turned the group on its ear after one matchday, but it also completely disabused Canada of the notion that Qatar can somehow be taken lightly when the two sides meet on Thursday afternoon in Vancouver.
The prevailing sentiment upon looking at Canada’s slate of group-stage matches ahead of the World Cup was that the Qatar game was the one you could pencil in as a win.
Switzerland, the No. 11 team in the world, would be tough sledding and Bosnia and Herzegovina, a squad that made it through a rigorous UEFA playoff path and took out four-time champions Italy on the way, were going to put up a fight. The unheralded Qataris represented Canada’s best chance to earn a first-ever World Cup win.
But what makes Qatar unheralded? Much of it is simply general unfamiliarity with the team and its players. The team’s sole previous World Cup appearance was in 2022 when they qualified automatically as hosts and lost all three of their group-stage matches.
Made up of players almost exclusively from the domestic Qatar Stars League, ranked the 65th-best league in the world by Global Football Rankings, Qatar earned a berth to this year’s tournament thanks to four rounds of AFC qualifying where they came up against only two teams that had played in a World Cup before among their nine opponents.
Yet Saturday’s match proved that none of that means anything right now. Qatar remains well aware of their perception in footballing circles. Manager Julen Lopetegui knows they won’t change that instantaneously, but they will fight to do so.
“We know that when the ball [at the draw] comes out with Qatar in, the other teams are happy,” the former Spain, Real Madrid and West Ham boss told The Guardian’s Sid Lowe. “That shouldn’t annoy us; we should know. They have to beat us. We have to construct the best competitive scenario. We have to find a balance. We can’t let a player’s head drop – we still have ambition, still have excitement – but nor can we think we’re something we’re not.”
It was goalkeeper Mahmud Abunada who helped keep Qatar in position for a late smash-and-grab against Switzerland. The Swiss dominated both possession and shots. Holding the ball for 70 per cent of the match, Switzerland produced 20 shots, including seven on goal. The only shot that beat the 26-year-old Abunada was a 17th-minute penalty effort from Rennes forward Breel Embolo.
“It’s the World Cup, you need to focus in every minute and every second,” Abunada, one of 12 players who weren’t in the 2022 squad, said after the match “If you sleep a little bit, you’ll let in a goal. It’s a big [point] and I hope in the future [I can make] a lot of saves.”
Canada will be happy to oblige Abunada with the opportunity to make more saves. After coming into the tournament starved for offence, Jesse Marsch will have been pleased with the chances generated in the opening match with Bosnia last Friday.
While Cyle Larin’s 78th-minute goal was Canada’s only marker of the match, there should have been more. Both Jonathan David and Tani Oluwaseyi spurned glorious chances in the first half and Richie Laryea’s effort in the second was almost preposterously cleared off the line by Sead Kolasinac before being rung off of the crossbar by the Bosnian defender.
Thursday’s game will be the only the second meeting between the two sides and the first in nearly four years. Canada and Qatar previously met in Vienna as a tune-up ahead of the 2022 World Cup. Canada claimed a 2-0 win on first-half goals from Larin and David.
But much has changed since then. Six of the 11 players who started that match for Canada aren’t on the roster and neither are three of the six players who came on as subs. There’s a great deal of turnover with the Qatari squad, as well, with eight of its starting XI not at the tournament.
In the match with Switzerland, Lopetegui’s side proved to have the recipe to frustrate a more skilled opponent, and they’ll be out to do that again in Vancouver. The biggest difference, of course, will be the rabidly partisan crowd trying to cheer on Canada to its first-ever World Cup win. Still, the pressure will squarely be on the hosts.
“The thing we cannot feel is pressure,” Lopetegui said. “We have to enjoy [this] because we won the right to be there. You can enjoy better by being competitive. The word pressure - it’s not in our language.”
