World Cup Qualifying - Asia v Europe Playoff Qatar vs Switzerland
How much time had passed since Fleming and I had been in this position before? The two of us sitting in a private office, across a desk from a man in white robes and sunglasses flanked by pin-striped… what exactly? Bodyguards? Secretaries? Advisors?
Both of us were sweating.
“Explain,” said the man seated at the desk.
I cleared my throat, gave Fleming a glance (he just widened his eyes a little in a ‘beats me’ look), and said, “Well… er… as you know we had come into the match having gone over 180 minutes, or two full matches, without giving up a goal.”
“Yes?” asked the man.
“So… um… it couldn’t last forever?” I ventured.
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> HealdOrtiz Pants Di Chiara Vergeylen XenaoMilito Landstrom Gigi Papa Power Gigi Papa </pre>
Fleming coughed, “They scored in the 4th minute. I mean, it was practically their first possession of the game. Yakin dribbled at our defense, and crossed for… um…” He looked at me.
I checked my notes, “er… Wirtschaftsberatung.”
“What’s that?” said the man.
“Um… that’s a ‘who’ actually. It’s one of the Swiss strikers. Well, he jumped and headed past
Heald. That was about 4 minutes in.”
“And then?” said the man.
“Well… we just couldn’t really do anything. It took 40 minutes before we could really manage any chances.
Lucas crossed for
Power but he put it wide of the Swiss net.”
“You see… the Swiss knew that we had to score twice to win the playoff. So they just sat back and made us chase the ball,” Fleming added.
“We had a bit more possession in the 2nd half, but one long move was ended when
Power was caught just offside. So, we made our substitutions, bringing on
Golubev and
Speedy. (
Scotdinho still injured.)”
“That seemed to spark as little as
Power got to the end of
Speedy pass and forced a good save from the Swiss keeper,” said Fleming.
“And?” said the man.
“Well, it just wasn’t enough.
Gigi Papa had a shot trickle towards goal, and the Swiss had a shot go wide, but… they just controlled the game on us. We couldn’t move into their final third,” I said.
“So you lost
0-1.”
“Well. Yes.”
The man at the desk was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “We are slightly disappointed with the qualifying run for the World Cup.”
Fleming and I both had an involuntary shudder.
“However,” the man continued, “we
are satisfied with your overall performance.
End of Part Two
…
Interlude So by this time, had you at any point feared for your life?
Feared? I don’t understand.
Were you afraid of being killed?
Well… I don’t know if I would say ‘afraid’. What we were… was just uncertain really. Our livelihoods were completely in the hands of the Qatar Football Association. As far as any other country was concerned, we were nobodies. We didn’t exist. They could do almost anything with us that they wanted.
So you were completely under their control?
Well… I guess you could say that.
And it never seemed to you… that you were engaging in crimes of an international nature?
We were just doing what seemed best. We were just trying to win soccer games.
… Hmmm… So what happened next? 
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