Hundreds of followers from South Asia and South America greeted Neymar and his teammates because the Brazil squad landed in Qatar for their bid to safe a sixth World Cup.
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Drum-beating Indians who’ve already made their mark on the match left Brazilians in a minority outdoors the posh Doha lodge that would be the Selecao’s base for the match.
“Why do neutral fans support Brazil? Because they are the best in the world,” mentioned Kelly Dias, a Brazilian who runs a cosmetics enterprise in Madrid and is spending three weeks in Qatar.
“You can see it in the streets. Brazil are the favourites,” added the 39-year-old.
The tens of hundreds of Indian soccer followers in Qatar are primarily divided between Argentina and Qatar.
As with Argentina’s arrival, the Brazil followers received solely a fleeting glimpse of their heroes because the staff bus with tinted home windows drove by with out stopping.
Every night time the followers organise rival flash mobs in Doha the place lots of beat drums and wave the Argentinian and Brazilian flags. Smaller teams have backed England and different European nations.
The Indian contingent was joined by Brazil followers from Bangladesh and Arab nations as they waited for greater than three hours outdoors the lodge late Saturday.
Lijo Mathew, 24, mentioned he waited as a result of he needed to see Neymar. Others wore yellow shirts with Neymar’s title written throughout the again.
The Indians, primarily from Kerala state, are indignant at European media studies calling them “fake fans”. Qatar organisers have additionally slammed the studies.
“There are a lot of fans in Kerala,” mentioned Haneef, who runs a public relations agency in Doha.
“They love Neymar, they love Brazil, because, you know, India is not good at football,” she mentioned.
Haneef mentioned she fell for the Brazil staff once they final received the title in Japan in 2002.
Others are certain Brazil will triumph once more on the match’s return to Asia.
“This is going to be our sixth world title,” mentioned Badrudeen.
The South Americans arrived from Turin the place they’ve been based mostly with coach Tite for the final week.
They had been the final of the 32 nations to reach for the match that begins Sunday with the Qatar-Ecuador opening sport.
Knocked out by Belgium within the quarter-finals in 2018, Brazil open their marketing campaign towards Serbia on Thursday.
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