Is there any greater joy in football than watching your national team play in a competitive international tournament? Not if you ask me.
When Lebanon’s men’s football team, my ancestral country, qualified for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup in 2017, I cried many tears of joy. I was too young to remember the Cedars playing in the 2000 edition of the competition, so to finally see my national team go the distance in qualifying was a dream come true. I was so high on ecstasy that I skipped my university class to record a reaction video for my YouTube channel.
Four years later, I nearly lost my mind in celebration when Canada’s women’s football team, my birth country, won gold at the 2020 Summer Olympics, overcoming the likes of Sweden, the United States and Brazil along the way. My goalkeeper analysis piece of Stephanie Labbé’s heroics is still one of my favourite analysis pieces I’ve written.
And then there’s the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Sure, Canada’s men’s team lost all three games, but those losses aren’t what I remember when I think back to the tournament. (Honestly, I had to double-check if we had lost or drawn the game against Morocco.) What I remember first is seeing Canada’s big red maple leaf on the scoreboard, hearing O Canada bellowed by the players on the pitch and the fans surrounding them, and celebrating like mad with my fellow Muslim football fanatics when Alphonso Davies scored the first men’s World Cup goal in Canadian history.
Whether you win a trophy or lose every match, playing in an international tournament like the World Cup is a special feeling — and that’s doubly true for those of us who come from countries that don’t often qualify for these tournaments.
That’s why when 2026 World Cup qualifiers kicked off in Africa and greater Asia in November, The Athletic Ummah reached out to some of our football-loving followers who don’t come from powerhouse nations but were nonetheless excited to see their countries play for a spot in the next World Cup.
Here’s what they told us.
Tharwat Skeik, Palestine
In a world where Western powers appear to be trying to erase the State of Palestine from the map, amateur football coach Tharwat Skeik feels the Palestinian national team is giving the nation some legitimacy.
“It makes you feel like you’ve got a country,” he told The Athletic Ummah. “We’re there, we’re competing against some of the best Asian teams out there.”
To say the weeks after Oct. 7 have been difficult for Palestinians like Skeik would be an understatement. For the better part of nearly two months, Israel has been indiscriminately bombarding large parts of Gaza. Among some of Israel’s targets in Gaza were refugee camps and ambulance convoys. 50 Palestinian journalists have also been killed.
They claim they’re only there to eradicate Hamas, yet Gazan medical officials say more than 15,600 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, including more than 5,500 children.
A four-day ceasefire, negotiated by Qatar, was announced by Israel and Hamas a couple of weeks ago — and it was even extended by a few days. But by that point, 1.8 million people, or more than 80 per cent of Gazans, had already been displaced, according to the United Nations.
Skeik says it’s been difficult seeing the images of destroyed buildings and lifeless bodies coming out of Gaza — the place he called home from 2004 to 2007.
“You feel guilty [for] eating a nice meal or having hot water to shower,” he said. “You start thinking of your family, like, ‘Oh my God, they don’t even have that basic stuff.’”
Skeik, who lives in his birth country Canada, is doing everything he can to support his family and his wife’s family in Gaza. But he’s also trying to keep his mental health in check — and for that, he’s turned to football.
It’s a sport his family loves. He coaches several youth teams, he plays as an amateur goalkeeper on the side, and his sons also play.
“It’s one of those stress relievers,” he said. “So when you step on the field, whether it’s coaching or watching, you kind of forget for an hour all the problems and just concentrate on the field.”
Skeik enjoys playing and coaching football more than watching it. But when the opportunity arises, he’ll tune into the Palestinian national team — like when they opened their 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign against Lebanon on Nov. 16.
Skeik has read some comments recently about whether the Palestinian national team should be competing during such a difficult time — and he understands that as a Palestinian football fan, it can sometimes be hard to enjoy the excitement of watching the national team while navigating through emotions related to the atrocities being committed in Gaza.
But Skeik says the team, like Palestinian athletes at the Olympics, brings a sense of national unity and connection to the motherland, especially to Palestinians like himself who live abroad.
“Seeing that flag and the procession and opening ceremonies, that means a lot,” he said.
Palestine’s presence in World Cup qualifiers could also help legitimize the Palestinian cause across Asia, particularly in the Far East and Australia.
“You saw recently … Australia[‘s national team] donating some money to humanitarian causes, which is great,” he said.
Although Skeik would love to see Palestine play in the World Cup, they’ve got a bit of a tricky road ahead of them if they want to qualify for the 2026 edition.
Palestine entered the Asia section of qualifiers in the second round, into a group consisting of Australia, Lebanon and Bangladesh. The top two teams in their group will qualify for the third round, where 18 teams will be split into three groups of six.
“My dream is that they play in Palestine.”
Tharwat Skeik
From there, the top two teams of those groups automatically qualify for the 2026 World Cup, while third and fourth place qualify for the fourth round, for a chance at two more automatic qualifying spots or, if they miss out, a spot in the inter-confederation play-offs.
Palestine is currently in third place in their group, just a point behind second-place Lebanon with four qualifiers to go.
But even if Palestine doesn’t go the distance, he hopes their performances bring more attention to their cause, and paves a way for the national team to play games in Gaza and the occupied territories — something they haven’t done in more than four years.
“My dream is that they play in Palestine and that they improve and they can have world-class stadiums, [with] kids growing up [and] having an opportunity to play for the national team,” he said.
Mohamed Salad, Somalia
When Somalia kicked off its 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign against Algeria, journalist Mohamed Salad felt a joy he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Seeing Somalia play was brilliant,” he told The Athletic Ummah via WhatsApp. “Seeing them play so well against two very good teams in Africa was an unbelievable feeling.”
Salad has followed the Somali national team for a long time. He’s Somali, and like many other Somalis, Salad enjoyed football and felt connected to the sport through his national team.
But joyous football moments used to be few and far between as a Somali.
“For the majority of our lives, we haven’t seen our country play, and when we have seen them play, it wasn’t fun to watch,” he said.
The way World Cup qualifiers worked in Africa in the past, a group of the lowest-ranked African nations would be split into home-and-away ties over two legs. Whichever countries won those matchups would progress to the next round of qualifying, which would feature the rest of the continent, including all of Africa’s top teams.
Somalia would never get that far, though. They’ve lost 9 of the 11 qualifiers they’ve played between the 2002 and 2022 editions; and they only got their first World Cup Qualification win in 2022 qualifiers, against Zimbabwe.
“We had no faith in our recruitment or our team,” he said.
But things are different this time around. Thanks to the 2026 World Cup being the first 48-team edition of the competition in history, a new, expanded format of qualifiers was drawn up for Africa. This time around, all 54 members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) were drawn into nine groups of six teams.
This includes Somalia, which was ranked 199th in the world at the time of the draw, the lowest among African teams. Somalia’s group features 2019 African Cup of Nations champions Algeria and two other teams ranked inside FIFA’s top 100, Guinea and Uganda.
“No matter what, we will get 10 games to get the experience and the opportunity to play against the likes of Algeria, [which doesn’t] usually come around for us because we never get that far,” Salad said.
“I am a massive fan of the new format.”
Somalia started the qualifiers as they might’ve been expected to start, with a 3-1 loss against Algeria in the opener and a 1-0 loss to Uganda. However, Salad said the close scores and the quality of the goals they conceded show that Somalia is good enough to put up a challenge.
“We played some good football at times and scored a goal against Algeria which is massive,” he said. “We are so, so proud of them and we will support them.”
With the new format, only the group winner is guaranteed an automatic spot in the 2026 World Cup. The top four funner-ups from the 9 groups are then put in a play-off bracket for a chance to compete in the inter-confederation play-offs, where the final two World Cup spots will be up for grabs between teams from all continents.
But while qualification may be a long shot, Salad says it was never a goal for Somalia. Rather, it’s to gain experience and build a foundation for the future.
“Somalia is a country [that] is almost new to football, considering how long we haven’t been competing,” he said. “So this will take time and we have to be patient.
In the meantime, Salad is relishing in the expanded qualifying format and seeing his country compete against some of Africa’s best.
“Now, we have a reason to look forward to the international break,” he said. “It’s the best feeling in the world … when your country is playing at a higher level.”
Muhamad Abbas Okera, Pakistan
For years, Pakistani football fan Muhamad Abbas Okera felt left out when the international break rolled around.
“My Iraqi friends, my Lebanese friends … [were] able to watch them play in the qualifiers, in the Asian tournaments and stuff,” he told The Athletic Ummah. “I never had that.”
That’s in large part because the Pakistan national football team never went far in qualification. In 32 World Cup qualifiers between 1989 and 2019, Pakistan lost 28 matches and conceded 122 goals.
Furthermore, since the Asian qualification process was revamped for the 2006 World Cup, Pakistan had never progressed past the first round — a home-and-away matchup vs. another one of Asia’s lowest-ranked teams.
For five straight qualification processes between 2006 and 2022, Pakistan was eliminated after just two games, well before most of Asia had played their first qualifier.
It was frustrating for Okera, who’s of Pakistani descent on his mom’s side and Somalian descent on his father’s side. As a result, he turned to other national teams to feel any kind of a connection to the international break
“I support Argentina, but people would say, ‘You’re from South Asia,’” he said. “And it’s like, yeah, I don’t really connect with them.”
“The closest I got to supporting a team that I could really connect to would be like Iran in the World Cup because of the Shia population.”
“I have a country to connect with now.”
Muhamad Abbas Okera
More of the same was anticipated of Pakistan when the 2026 World Cup qualifiers kicked off in Asia in October 2023. As usual, Pakistan entered the process in the first round — and the 201st-ranked Shaheens were not expected to trouble 176th-ranked Cambodia.
But after a 0-0 away draw set them up nicely in the return leg, Pakistan pulled off what is probably the greatest victory in the country’s history. A 1-0 win in Islamabad was Pakistan’s first ever win in World Cup qualifiers, and it meant they progressed past the first round of qualifiers for the first time.
“It was a very nice feeling,” he said. “I have a country to connect with now.”
Pakistan’s goal came courtesy of midfielder Harun Hamid, who plays for St Albans City in England. Hamid is one of several foreign-born players on Pakistan’s football team, and Okera said calling on Pakistani diaspora players like Hamid has helped the national team perform.
Head coach Stephen Constantine, who previously coached India, has also set Pakistan up defensively in such a way that they’re difficult to break through, according to Okera.
“The defensive structure is actually good, so I feel like they’ve actually started focusing on actually making the team good,” he said.
Following their historic win, Pakistan was drawn into a tough Group G, alongside Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Jordan. It was a bittersweet reward for finally making it to the second round of qualifiers, and Pakistan was welcomed with 4-0 and 6-1 losses to Saudi Arabia and Tajikistan.
Although the defeats stung, Okera is aware that the chances of Pakistan advancing from the group are slim anyway. But, he was encouraged by how the team played against Saudi Arabia specifically.
He hopes the Shaheens can use this experience to continue pushing for new heights.
“For me, it’s all about improvement for the national team,” he said. “It’s nice to see them here right now, [but] if we can improve and actually start getting better and stuff, that’s all that matters.”
“There is some potential that I feel like could be exploited.”
Headline photo credit: Pakistan Football Federation/Facebook
[…] why I’m pleased with the revamped structure of World Cup qualifiers in Africa, which allows teams like Somalia to play meaningful games against top-quality opponents. It’s also why I’m stoked to see the […]