Around 600 supporters, mostly fans hailing from Kerala, greeted Portuguese team on their arrival in Qatar.
DOHA, QATAR
Portugal team led by its iconic player Cristiano Ronaldo checked into their Team hotel late on Friday night and had their first training session at Al Shahaniya SC on Saturday evening.
Around 600 fans, mostly fans hailing from Kerala were on hand to welcome their football heroes along with scores of fans from different parts of the world besides Portugal were present to cheer and welcome the footballers from the Iberian Peninsula.
The fans, who took positions at the designated space a good four hours before the team arrived, were disappointed as they were hoping that all the players will wave out to them or come and greet them after getting down from their team bus.
That did not happen. They were unhappy that they could not get a closer glimpse of their favorite players including Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes as the bus drove past them into the hotel premises.
But there were some who were elated to have a quick glimpse of the players among them was Anoja Basnayaka, a Sri Lankan fan of Portugal and a die-hard supporter of Cristiano Ronaldo. “Not only did I get to see Ronaldo but I managed to see him waving out to the crowd from the bus. It was such a terrific moment it was like he was waving out only to me,” said the Qatar-based football fan.
Portugal, which is making their eighth appearance in the World Cup Finals, will stay in the Samriya Hotel near Shahaniya. Santos' side will start their World Cup matches against Ghana on November 24 at 974 Stadium, before playing with Uruguay on November 28 at Lusail Stadium and conclude their league engagements with a match against South Korea, on December 2, at the Education City Stadium.
Although Qatar 2022 will be the most compact World Cup in history, due to the fact that the host country has an area of just 11,571 square kilometers, Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal decided not to be part of the 24 teams that are less than 10 kilometers away from each other and chose to stay at the Autograph Collection Hotel, located in the town of Al Samriya in the municipality of Al-Shahaniya, 29.7 kilometres from Doha.
The Portuguese team's hotel is located at a moderate distance from the stadiums they will be playing their three matches - Stadium 974, 40 kilometres away, Lusail Stadium 37 kilometres away, Education City Stadium, 20 kilometres away.
The Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, one of the major tourist attractions is a stone's thrown away from the Portugal team hotel, which says was built with traditional materials from the region and is located very close to the Al Samriya Farm, which supplied some of the raw materials for the construction of the building. It has 62 rooms and 26 villas, a spa and a restaurant and the other landmarks besides the Museum are the Al Samriya Equestrian Center and an iconic oryx reserve area.
The team trained on Saturday evening at Al Shahaniya SC, a club founded in 1998 that currently plays in the second division of the World Cup host country and is less than 10 kilometres away from the hotel where the players are staying.
