Day 1 in Doha
Bora, rainbows and a townhouse
DOHA, Qatar — “Grant!!!”
I turned on a dime in the airport, where I had just landed after a 24-hour journey to the World Cup. Who’s calling my name? And how can they recognize me with my mask on?
It was Bora. Of course it was.
Bora Milutinovic, the peripatetic Serb who coached the U.S. at World Cup 1994 and Mexico at World Cup 1986, who also coached Costa Rica and Nigeria and China at the planet’s biggest sporting event, gave me a big hug. Bora has lived for more than a decade in Qatar, whose World Cup candidacy he spoke on behalf of when the small Middle East nation won the right to host this event in 2010.
And I swear to god this is true: I ran into Bora randomly at the Zurich airport when I landed there in December 2010 on the day before FIFA gave this World Cup to Qatar in the first place. Talk about coming full circle.
Where have Bora and I connected over the years? 1) At a train station in Nantes, France after his Nigeria beat Spain 3-2 at World Cup 1998. 2) In the remote southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, where we spent a week together for a story ahead of World Cup 2002. 3) In my rental car in Johannesburg when Bora was coaching Iraq at the 2009 Confederations Cup. And 4) Here in Doha in 2013 when I came to write a story about the Qatar World Cup.