Football to me is something which cannot be expressly described in words☺️. If luck and destiny had their way, I would have made a career for myself in playing football. But let's keep it aside for some other blog. For now, let's take a look at what transpired to me having a dream to watch FIFA WC in a stadium.
It was the morning of July 9th, 2014 and I woke up to perhaps the most dreadful news for a Brazilian football team fan. Germany had humiliated Brazil in the semi-finals by beating them 7-1. Co-incidentally this happened to be the only Brazil match that I didn't watch on TV in that tournament. I was already feeling very low as my sister had just got married 2 days back and it started to feel too much to handle. Having felt my pain, my friend came up with this - 'So what if Brazil has lost today and you couldn't watch them play? Very soon, you will be a CA and then you can self-sponsor a trip to FIFA WC and watch them play'. Target was thus set - 2018 WC in Russia! Luckily, I was also able to even convince my family, a year in advance. However, a below expected compensation in 2018 spoiled all my plans. This is when I made a promise to myself - by hook or crook, I will go for the 2022 WC. I shouldn't be dependent on my compensation for this trip.
Poursuis Tes Rêves (Chase Your Dreams in French), is something I have believed in for a long time. So much so that I even got it imprinted on my body as a tattoo. 15th July 2020 - the match schedule (except teams) for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar was finalized and this is when I had started saving towards this goal by having focused investments.
Official FIFA WC tickets sale take place in multiple phases - few phases of lottery, few phases of first-cum-first serve basis and ending with resale tickets. Given the volume of football fans from across the world, it actually gets very difficult to get your hands on even one ticket. If you manage to get a ticket in the lottery-phase, you can actually end up saving lots of money as tickets are available for even the lowest price categories. Later, it becomes a demand vs supply game, and you are left with no option but to book for even pricey categories. Ticket prices for international fans range from QAR 250 to 5850 (USD 60 - 1600) per person. Meanwhile, these prices are around 2.5 times higher than what Qatar residents pay for each game across various stages.
I had initially applied for the lottery-based sale on1st February 2022 for various matches and stages of the tournament - via multiple accounts, hoping to increase my probability of getting lucky. Bad luck 1 - no luck and my heart sank a bit. I had then literally put up a reminder across devices for the next application phase in May. Bad luck 2 - even this didn't go as per plans and slowly I started to feel maybe it's not going to happen again.
Save the Date:5th July 2022!
Everything was set for opening of a new phase of first-cum-first-serve basis. Night before, I had created multiple combination of tickets that I could purchase depending upon where my favorite teams and players night play. My first preference was always going to be - Finals. I was willing to pay INR 50K, fly down to Qatar, just for even one match - though a match for lifetime. Despite logging in at exact opening time, I was in a waiting queue for almost 2 hours. Surprisingly, there were no tickets on offer for the semi-finals and final stages. So, naturally I had to choose matches from the quarter-finals as that's when the tournament gets serious and spicy. Thankfully, I managed to get hold of two consecutive days of quarter-final matches. But hold on. Would I go all the way to Qatar for just 2-3 days? 'Nay', was the instant reply, my head and heart gave. So I looked upon and booked myself another ticket - a R-16 match as well which will hopefully have one of my favorite teams play. Eventually, I end up with three match day tickets with sufficient time in between to even explore Qatar. It's time now for the biggest football festival, extravaganza on this planet.
It was a surreal moment when I received an email confirming my ticket. Felt like a big burden of self-expectations was finally off my shoulders. However, this was short-lived as I then realized how much more difficult it would be to even reach Qatar😥and that too a solo travel to a new country.
-To be continued...
Picture courtesy - FIFA
