DOHA: Qatar’s University League kicked off Thursday night when Qatar Aeronautical College (QAC) squared off against Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QIFS) in the opening match of the second ever edition of the league. In association with the Qatar Football Association (QFA), Qatar Foundation organized the league and Thursday’s matches took place on pitch 3 of Qatar Foundation. As QAC were edging nearer to a resounding 3-0 win against QIFS, players from other universities started arriving to the pitch for their matches. In the night’s second match, Qatar University (QU) – last year’s champions – faced off against Northwestern University (NU). A couple of NU’s students spoke to the www.sc.qa before their match started. Londoner James Copplestone-Farmer, who studies communications and has been a resident of Qatar for over four years, said: “The pitches looked bigger and everything is much more organized. Judging by the edges of the pitch there seems to be a lot more sponsors and interest in it this year.” “There was a strong football culture here before. When I arrived people were always talking about football, but I think during the World Cup in Brazil this year, and the European Championship in 2012, there were a lot more events at malls, in the souqs, and at hotels they had fan areas. I was at the fan-zones myself and it was enjoyable. “Certainly it’s developed quite a lot. Many famous names are now coming to Qatar for football such as Nilmar and even though he just left, Raul. I guess it has developed a fair amount, it’s growing,” added Copplestone-Farmer. Although much newer in town, NU player Demetrios Ilias from New York has traveled around the Middle East and Gulf before, and agrees with his teammate that football culture is on the rise. “I’ve seen the building of stadiums and I think it’s super cool. I really love football, so it’s very cool that football is expanding here and what’s even cooler is that FIFA chose a different region for the World Cup. Positively it could show the world what places in the Middle East are actually like. They’re not all conflict zones and I know everything the media says about Qatar isn’t true.” While much of the coverage of the 2022 FIFA World CupTM in Qatar has been negative, Ilias insists the tournament will bring foreigners closer together than ever before. He added: “The World Cup will allow people to interact like I’m doing right now with people from all over the world. It’s a cool melting pot, I’m from New York so I know what that term means, but here it’s a bit different. You meet people from Qatar but also people from Southeast Asia, Africa, and other places in the Middle East. It’s different. When foreigners visit Qatar for the World Cup they’ll be able to do the same, meet people from the region and people who live here and understand that we’re just the same, we’re all people.” As Copplestone-Farmer and Ilias took to the field to play the league’s reigning champions in the second match, one of QU’s injured players took his time to talk to the Supreme Committee. Ahmad Hamed Suleiman, a civil engineering student from QU, couldn’t play the first match but was excited about competing against foreigners in the University League. He said: “Football is the same everywhere, but you get a taste of their kind of football. And also if we can accept it in many different ways why not also in football? It’s a nice feeling.” “Since I was born up until now,” Suleiman added, “it’s totally changed. Before there were no football academies or even nice fields like we see today. Nowadays Qatar cares more about sports. You have many schools and university championships, but mainly football academies.” Suleiman exemplified his beliefs by mentioning the success of Qatar’s under-19s – most of whom his friends from childhood – making last week’s AFC U19 Championships success in Myanmar last week all the sweeter. He claimed: “This is great news because most of them will be the heart of the 2022 team at the World Cup. Most of them, like my friend Assim Madibo, went to the same school as me.” At the end of the ninety minutes QU retained their winning ways as the night saw another 3-0 drubbing, and in the last match College of the North Atlantic Qatar (CANQ) slumped to a 1-3 defeat against Weil Cornell Medical College Qatar. The second University League match day will take place on November 6th.