Missed the game. Was it any good?

So is Emi Martinez the only World Cup winner to have played in League 2?

Scumbag country. Still want the tell all by G

It’s certainly not a place I’ll be in a hurry to go back to. Breathtaking hypocrisy between the ruling classes and their underlings. Very much “do what I say, not what I’m doing behind closed doors.”
I came away from Doha with the lasting impression that, you have all this money, and this was all you could think to do with it?!
Huge billboards everywhere proclaiming “We’re winning the hearts and minds of the world!”
…um…no you’re not. You’re just trying to buy the hearts and minds of the world, and while we’re quite happy to take that money, we still think your country is a complete shit-show.

Not the oil states like Qatar mind, they offered fuck all historically and offer fuck all now.

The idea of what a culture offered historically is an odd concept to judge a culture by. I would argue an unfair one.
It's an economical mindset to evaluate something based on output.

It seems to me that a culture or society and it's people have intrinsic value regardless of whether they create art, travel, explore, live a nomadic or subsistence way. Cultures that are able to live in respect of the land they live in and treat people - even invaders - with decency and humanity is a much more sensible evaluation of a cultures worth.

We know in Australia there are stories of Dutch shipwreck survivors, or child convicts who escaped who were cared for and saved by the tribes they encountered. There is history of trade between northern Australias aboriginal people and Chinese, Pacific Islander and SE Asian travellers.

All these cultures in pre-1788 Australia were filled with amazing oral stories, art, song lines and knowledge of the land they lived in. I would never feel right judging them based on whether or not they made ornate temples, mathematical breakthroughs or other fantastic achievements. It would be ignorant of their way of living with their land.

I'm also mindful that many of us here are also descended from recent empires, conquerers, invaders in many directions and this to me is actually something that deletes from the value of a culture; the inability to see dignity in others and their right to continued existence is abhorrent.

That said, fuck Qatar. For some of the reasons mentioned above it exploits and abuses powerless people. It doesn't matter what art or science it has or hasn't created. It grinds people into the dirt and robs them of their basic human rights.