Fans were left surprised at seeing swathes of fans leaving the Al Bayt stadium at half-time during the 2022 World Cup opener between Qatar and Ecuador.
Enner Valencia had put the South American side 2-0 up after 35 minutes having already had a goal disallowed too, and the home fans seemed to have had enough at that point, with large portions of the seats left empty during the second half and emptying as the game went on.
Ecuador didn't add to their lead though and the game fizzled out and finished 2-0. Despite 12 years of build-up, controversy and belated excitement, it wasn't enough to keep fans in the ground for the full 90 minutes, and BBC's coverage picked up on the fans leaving.
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Speaking after the match, Gary Linekar said: "It seemed full at the start of the game and then at half-time you [Alan Shearer] said straight away there was a lot of empty seats and maybe it was one of those things where they come back from the corporate areas."
Shearer responded: "This was an hour into the game Gary, there were so many [empty seats] and so many leaving, at half time as well, they just never came back into the stadium. Certainly not in the numbers that were there ahead of the game." Linekar then added that the Qataris would have been "Disappointed with their team."
The number of fans in the stadium was announced as having been 67,372, but that also raised questions with an estimated capacity of around 60,000. Alex Scott believes that those leaving could have impacted the game too, adding, "It didn't help the flat feeling of the second half and how entertaining it was, not a lot of excitement either."
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