Qatar is keeping a very low profile at the World Cup in Russia but is confident and ready to dazzle everyone when it hosts the 2022 tournament it was controversially awarded eight years ago.
"I think it is going to be a unique opportunity. The fact that it is unique and a very different type of World Cup is going to catch everyone's curiosity," organising committee deputy secretary-general Nasser Al Khater said.
The interview with four media outlets, including dpa, was a rare public appearance, and Qatar has limited its general activities to a week of events and installations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg between July 7 and 15.
"We wanted to make sure that we were also very respectful, we didn't want to be sort of too obvious so we decided to leave it until towards the end of the tournament," Al Khater said.
However, more than 100 members of the Qatar organising committee are embedded in the activities at the tournament in Russia to learn about every aspect of hosting such an event.
Once the Moscow final between France and Croatia has been played Sunday the focus will firmly shift onto the first World Cup in the Middle East, with all its opportunities and controversies.
Corruption allegations still swirl around the awarding in 2010, the deaths of workers have highlighted human rights problems and, because of the hot summers, the tournament is to be played between November 21 and December 18 instead of the usual June/July slot - forcing a change of the global football calendar.
Regional tensions have added to the problems but Al Khater insisted that "the political situation hasn't affected us at all".
Al Khater has said such an expanded 48-team event would be "doable" in Qatar with a decision expected in early 2019.
For now, though, the plan is for 32 teams to play in eight stadiums, with four of them in the capital Doha and none of the others more than 35 kilometres away.
Qatar has pledged state-of-the-art facilities, including cooling systems in the arenas, although the November and December temperatures don't average above 30C, far lower then the 40C-plus in summer.
Another question-mark is the host team, which has never qualified for the World Cup and could share South Africa's fate from 2010 of going out in the group stage.
"If our team reaches to as far as Russia has reached, [it] would be a phenomenal triumph for us," Al Khater said.
Russia reached the quarter-finals.
The 2018 hosts' acclaimed organisation of the event will give Qatar something to think about over the next four years.
"They're going to give us a run for our money, it's going to be a high bar to beat," Al Khater said.
