If you needed one more example of how this is so different to anything we've ever seen before, the call to prayer which echoed through the walk from Al Bidda station down toward the park was probably it.
The World Cup has never been to a country like Qatar, and frankly it shouldn't have done in this manner, but the fans making that determined walk toward the main Doha fan park were doing so out of curiosity, pride and a love for something that might not be the football that we know, but is their football, or the vision of it that they have been sold anyway.
The happy families and friendly locals and are not the ones to blame for the tournament being here, or for FIFA's love of money before all else, and as that familiar call to prayer boomed all around them, something that they hear every day, they walked on toward that fan park knowing that this is what it has all been about, something that they have never seen.
