During a career that spans five decades, English football legend Stuart Pearce has travelled the globe for major international tournaments as a player, a manager, a coach and a fan – and says the concept of a compact FIFA World Cup would become the norm for future editions.
Pearce, who was in Doha to attend the Soccerex Asian Forum, spoke exclusively to www.sc.qa and said having one place to live and train throughout the tournament would be beneficial to players, coaches and fans.
“What Qatar are doing has never been done before, on this micro scale,” he said. “So it will be the forerunner of a tournament like this. If it works, people are going to be turning round saying: ‘Why haven’t we done it before?’
All eight proposed 2022 FIFA World Cup stadiums fit into an area of 153m2, which means they could fit into Greater London four times over. The greatest distance between Qatar’s most northerly and southerly venues is just 50km.
Pearce drew on one of England’s recent experiences to illustrate the benefits of Qatar’s compact setup.
“You’ve only got to go back to England’s venture in Poland and Ukraine at EURO 2012,” he continued.
“They decided ahead of the tournament to base themselves in Poland, but the way the draw worked out they had to play all their games in Ukraine – and were already committed to their selected base.
“They were flying in and flying out for every game. That’s far from ideal, especially for recovery for players – in terms of general recovery and in terms of any injuries that might have been picked up.
“So to have that operation in place, the training facility, the hotel – everything put in place and confirmed from day one to the day you go out of the tournament, it will be a big advantage.”
Another problem travelling managers, players and fans often face at major tournaments is the element of the unknown. Once the group stage is over, those who progress are placed into a knockout game at one of two stadiums, dependent on their finishing position within the group.
This, in turn, affects the potential locations of their team’s pathway through to the final – making it very difficult for teams and fans to plan their journeys in advance. Not something, Pearce says, that anyone will face in 2022.
“Once the tournament progresses and you start travelling, you can put things in place but you’re never going to get the similar standard of training facility or hotel that you’re looking for,” he continued.
“To have one base that you know you’re going into – especially with the travelling implications as well, that’s massive. To have bases that are no further than an hour or so from any of the stadiums, I would think that’s an absolute utopia for a lot of the teams that are going to come to here.”
The players will also benefit, according to the 54-year-old who has attended five major tournaments with England, as it means they will be able get into a consistent rhythm, allowing them to focus solely on the football.
“Getting into a routine was the most important thing for me – and it’s the same for a lot of players today,” he continued.
“If you take the Italy World Cup in 1990, we prepped in Sardinia in one hotel for a week and then moved to another hotel – and then once we got out of the group stages, we moved from the island onto mainland Italy, and after every game we were travelling.
“That really cut down your recovery time, your training time, it cut down everything. I would have preferred to stay in one base, I must say. That way it would leave us to focus on the most important thing, which was the games.”
The 1990 FIFA World Cup semi-finalist concluded by saying that, after experiencing Qatar’s weather during the exact time of the year the tournament will take place, the often-talked about heat will not be a problem.
“We’re in Qatar now [in December] and there was talk about the temperature, but the dates we’re now talking about playing the tournament on are around 24-25 degrees – it was more than that in Italy when we played the World Cup and nobody mentioned it then. So that rules that issue out of the equation.” (SC.qa)
Stuart Pearce
