Arab Fans | The Rise of Passionate Support in Football

Arab Fans and The World Cup: Who Do They Cheer for?

Arabs do love football and feel enthusiastic about every detail in the World Cup. This year the excitement is doubled for welcoming the tournamentson the land of Qatar and trying the experience of live watching the actions from the heart of Qatar stadiums-for it is the best way to enjoy football matches. Knowing that it is expected that 75% of the World Cup Attendee will be Arab fans and specifically Arabian Gulf people because of the close distances between countries.

Moreover, Qatar had guaranteed its qualification for being the host of World Cup 2022 then Morocco, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia joined the tournament after giving a good show in the qualifications stage. Yet many will miss Muhammad Salah’s national team “Egypt” due to the elimination by Senegal on penalties. As well as RiyadMahrez's national team “Algeria” after FIFA rejected their desperate bid to have their world cup play with Cameroon replayed.

After the draw, this is how the Arab teams were distributed in these 4 different groups:

Ø  Group A: Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, Netherland

Ø  Group C: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland

Ø  Group D: France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia

Ø  Group F: Belgium, Canada, Morocco, Croatia

Morocco's group is the toughest as it will face Belgium – rated first by FIFA – after facing the finalist in WC 2018 Croatia.

However,Saudi Arabia's journey through the group stage won’t be that smooth as it will be facing Messi’s team “Argentina” and Lewandowski’s team “Poland”.

On the other side Tunisia is expecting a special opponent in its third game in the group stage – the 2018 World Cup Winner –France.

Arab football fans have a rich history of cheering not only their national teams but even foreign World Cup teams, for example, Brazil, Germany, and Argentina have a huge fan base in the Middle Eastern world, while North African Arab fans tend to favour their neighbours Spain and Italy.