World Cup countdown: Five minutes with soccer reporter Vince Rugari in Qatar

Vince Rugari is currently in Qatar to cover the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on Monday, for The Age and the Herald. In this subscriber exclusive, he reflects on his love of the world game, weighs up the Socceroos’ chances of proceeding beyond their group matches, and makes some predictions about who will win the competition.

What are you most looking forward to as the clock ticks down to the start of the tournament?

Everything! There’s obviously a lot of issues with the selection of the host nation and their human rights record, but the good thing about it being in such a small place, with games to be played within Doha instead of sprawled across many different cities like a normal World Cup, is that you can watch multiple games in one day. I’m super keen to see as much football as I can, but more than anything, I’m eager to watch the Socceroos and see if they can spring an upset or two.

Sports journalist Vince Rugari, who with his Italian background grew up watching the Azzurri and the Socceroos, says covering a World Cup has always been an ambition.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

This will be the first World Cup you’ve covered as a journalist. How excited were you when you got the call-up? What preparation goes into covering such a big sporting event?

Covering a World Cup has been a big ambition for me and I’m thrilled to finally get the chance, especially for such a prestigious outlet with a history of terrific football coverage. To be honest, the way I see it, there is no ‘preparation’ as such. I try to immerse myself in the game back home as much as I can, get to know the players, coaches and people involved - one of the first things I do when I wake up each morning is check out FotMob to see how our Aussie players have fared at overseas clubs. I’m totally obsessed with the A-League too, so I’d like to think I’m across everything I need to know. I guess when you live like that, everything you do is preparation to cover a World Cup! The good thing is it never feels like work to me.

You obviously love the sport. Where does your passion for the game come from? What is your first memory of watching the World Cup?

I think like a lot of Aussies with an ethnic background - I’m Italian on both sides - football has just always been there in the background of my life. It’s part of who we are. I enjoy a lot of other sports too, but this one’s in my DNA. I have hazy memories of watching Italy play at France 1998 (I was eight) and Japan/Korea 2002, which was probably the first World Cup where I sort of understood what was going on and how it all worked. I also remember watching Australia’s qualifying failures against Uruguay before both those tournaments. Everything caught fire for me when we finally made it to the 2006 World Cup, and the Socceroos made the round of 16. The day they played against Italy was the day it dawned on me that I was truly Australian - before that I’d only ever cheered on the Azzurri, but when the first whistle was blown, I hated them. Strange feeling.

The Socceroos are in Group D, facing France, Denmark and Tunisia. What are our chances of proceeding to the next round?

I don’t think we’ve got a great chance, to be honest, it’s a really tough group and our squad is lacking world-class quality. Tunisia is our best chance to end our 12-year streak without a win at a World Cup, and if we can beat them I’ll be thrilled.

What can readers and subscribers expect from our coverage of the tournament?

I’ll be putting everything I have into this gig, along with my colleague from The Age, Greg Baum, who will be joining me in Doha shortly. Interviews, analysis, feature reads, observations on what it’s like to have a World Cup in a place like this … I hope our work can let our readers feel as if they’re on the ground with us.

Heading into the tournament, apart from the sport, there has been a lot of focus on Qatar’s human rights record. Were you surprised when the Socceroos became the first FIFA World Cup side to release a statement of protest against Qatar’s record?

I wasn’t surprised because I knew it was coming - the Socceroos have been one of the most engaged playing groups of the 32 teams who have qualified on this issue, and they’ve been talking about doing something for over a year. It was a brave thing to do and fortunately, so far, there hasn’t been any blowback for them on the ground in terms of local reception. From what I’ve heard talking to people here, Qataris didn’t like it at all, which you kind of understand. We’ll see what happens.

What are your predictions for the final stages of the tournament - and who do you think will win the World Cup?

This is a pretty open World Cup, I’d say there’s around five or six teams who can win it. The biggest favourites are Brazil and Argentina and I’m really keen for the latter to win it, just so Lionel Messi can finish his incredible career as a World Cup winner.

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