The Qatar national football team

The Qatar national football team (Arabic: منتخب قطر لكرة القدم‎) represents Qatar in international football, and is controlled by the Qatar Football Association and AFC.

The team has appeared in ten Asian Cup tournaments and won it once in 2019. They play their home games at Khalifa International Stadium and Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium. The latter is considered the home stadium for the team.

Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and therefore qualify automatically for what will be their first appearance in the finals. This will be the first time that an Arab nation will host the competition.

History

Pre-1970

Football was brought to Qatar during a time which coincided with initial discovery of oil reserves in Dukhan in 1940. By 1948, expatriate oil workers played the first official football match in Qatar. The Qatar Football Association was formed in 1960, and the QFA joined FIFA in 1970. Simultaneously during this period, the Bahrain Football Association were drawing up plans for the establishment of a regional football competition within the GCC and Qatari officials were involved with the corroboration of this proposal. The plans came to fruition and in March 1970 the Arabian Gulf Cup was inaugurated.

1970–1980

The Qatar national team played its first official match on 27 March 1970 against hosts Bahrain, losing 1–2 as Mubarak Faraj scored the sole goal for Qatar. The newly formed Qatar national team posted underwhelming results in the first Gulf Cup tournament, coming in last place with a single point, with the highlight of their tournament being a 1–1 draw with the Saudis in their final match.

In the next edition of the Gulf Cup in 1972, Qatar was again relegated to last place after suffering 3 straight defeats. The next tournament in 1974 proved to be somewhat of a break-through for the Qataris as they achieved their first triumph in international football with a 4–0 victory over Oman. The Qataris lost out to

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