When he arrived in Doha, the capital of Qatar, former coach of the Brazilian under-20 team Ney Franco had a single objective: to beat Al Ahli and lead Al Hussein, the Jordanian team he has led since December last year, to the quarter-finals of the Asian Champions League.
Everything would go well, but a war crossed his path. The United States and Israel bomb Iran in an attack that killed, among many other people, the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
From then on things changed.
Since then, Ney and the almost 50 people who make up the Al Hussein delegation — which includes three other Brazilians — have been stuck in Qatar because the country’s airspace is closed. There is no forecast for reopening.
He arrived in the Qatari capital on Friday night (27). He woke up early on Saturday and decided to go to the mall. It was around noon local time, six hours ahead of Brasília time, when the alert came.
“My cell phone started ringing, everyone’s cell phone started ringing,” he told Sheet by phone this Wednesday (3).
These are alarms similar to those of the Civil Defense of São Paulo, he stated, which were accompanied by instructions for everyone to stay at home.
Attacks against the ayatollahs’ regime had begun.
The first reaction was to try to understand what exactly was happening. “We realized that we were in an extremely delicate position”, says the Brazilian coach.
Qatar and Iran do not share a land border — they are separated by the sea of the Persian Gulf —, but the largest American air base in the Middle East, Al-Udeid, is located on Qatari territory, which makes the peninsula an obvious target.
So obvious that the air base was hit by an Iranian missile in an attack that, according to local authorities, left no injuries.
Back at the hotel, Ney experienced moments of apprehension. Starting with the family, with whom he spoke in the early hours. “My son called me, gave me guidance, he was very worried.”
Qatari authorities send the population the message that the country’s security is guaranteed — and it really is, says Ney, who sees “enormous efficiency” in the country’s anti-aircraft system —, but anyone who experiences the imminence of a conflict is naturally scared.
One of the most tense episodes occurred at night, when he was in his room and heard a loud explosion outside. He looked out the window and saw two rockets rising into the sky.
“I thought they were missiles coming towards the hotel. My first decision was to go down to reception”, he says. Hundreds of other guests did the same.
It wasn’t long before the police arrived at the scene to ask everyone to return to their rooms. The agents explained that the rockets were actually part of Qatar’s anti-missile system.
Other explosions of this kind would be heard later, “but by then we were kind of used to it.”
One of them caught attention because Ney shortly afterwards heard ambulance sirens. Overall, however, the air conflict was far from the Brazilian coach, who was only able to leave the hotel this Wednesday (4).
He was in a taxi and heading to a shopping mall when he spoke to the Sheet. “It’s a spectacular city, with lots of good food,” he said.
Ney Franco’s Al Hussein is one of the biggest teams in Jordan, a country neighboring Israel and Iraq — it’s somewhere between one and the other.
The team reached the quarterfinals after beating Esteghlal, based in Iran, in the round of 16.
The first game of the qualifiers would take place in Tehran, but ended up being transferred to Dubai due to the imminence of a conflict that was already approaching.
Al Hussein won both matches. The first by 1-0, and the second, in Jordan, by 3-2.
The management of the Jordanian club keeps the delegation updated on the talks it is having with the country’s embassy in Qatar to take the athletes back home.
However, this depends on the cooling of the conflict in the region. “There are tourists from half the world here, and when the airspace resumes they will have to fit all of them on flights. Patience”, he says.
This is the first team that Ney leads abroad. Previously, he was in charge of clubs such as Flamengo, São Paulo, Ipatinga and Botafogo, for which he won a Campeonato Mineiro, a Copa do Brasil, two Taça Guanabara, a Brasileirão and a South American Cup.
When he was coach of the under-20 team, he won a South American Championship, a World Cup, an International Mediterranean Cup and other titles.
