Education City Stadium takes significant step ahead of 2022 World Cup
Hosting the Club World Cup finals is a source of pride for everyone who participated in building the stadium, including engineer Mounira Al Jaber.
The Education City World Cup stadium hosted Thursday's Club World Cup final between champions Bayern Munich runners-up Tigres UANL.
The final offered an opportune occasion to present one of the World Cup stadiums to football fans watching across the world.
Source of pride
Competing in the Club World Cup finals is a source of pride for everyone who participated in building the stadium, among others, the engineer Mounira Al Jaber, director of the Education City stadium project.
Al Jaber participated in building the structure, from the phase of putting the design together to the operational phase. "I remember when we started working on the Education City stadium project in 2014, so I can't believe how quickly time went by, or how we got from the construction sites to a distinctive stadium, which is like a big diamond between the colleges and universities of Education City."
Memories made from building stadium
Al Jaber indicated that there are unforgettable memories in everyones mind, among others, the process of raising the roof of the stadium, finishing the facade, and installing the grass, he said: "when I am in the middle of the stadium and I see the elaborate infrastructure and the attention paid to the smallest details from the colour of the seats to the use of natural grass, I feel proud and grateful, so I see the fruit of our hard effort culminating in an architectural masterpiece."
He stressed that hosting the AFC Champions League matches was a considerable opportunity to test the operational efficiency of the stadium.
In 2020, 13 matches were played in just one week, which is why parts of the green rectangular grass have been damaged by intensive use during competitions, Al Jaber said: "We checked the damaged parts of the grass, especially in front of the goals, so the team in charge replaced the affected grass, in order to maintain quality and standards."
Significant step
Al Jaber sees the Club World Cup as a very significant step on the road to hosting FIFA Qatar 2022, as eight games will be played at the Education City stadium from the group round to the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup.