Two consecutive days of it on this blog. Let’s go for three.

For the Tuesday a.m. newspaper I did a column about the 1993 Asian World Cup qualifying tournament, which was held in Doha. An event I actually covered. (Gannett News Service; the good old days; stuff like that happened.) It was wild, six countries, 15 matches in 15 days, two berths in the 1994 World Cup at stake.

Here is the column for Tuesday reflecting on the events of 1993, many of which I remembered, and many which had grown hazy. And below I will add the overall scene piece that I wrote in 1993, which ran in USA Today, which my friend and former colleague Ed Erjavek, who works on the reference desk at the main library in San Bernardino … tracked down for me. Thanks much, Ed. And say hello to Angela for me, too, there at the library.

Anyway. A much-younger me marveling over the ’93 Asian qualifying tournament in some place called Doha, in a country named Qatar.

Things are different … and then, they’re not. Allow for a bit of gee-whiz-ism because in 1993 none of us had spent any time in the Gulf. Well, I hadn’t. The whole scene seemed amazingly exotic, to me back then.

This appeared in USA Today on October 26, 1993.

DOHA, Qatar – Viewing this Connecticut-sized, oil-rich Middle Eastern country, lifeless lunar landscapes come easily to mind.

Perhaps, then, it should be no surprise that the Asian World Cup qualifying competition in Doha often has seemed otherworldly. A bazaar of the bizarre.

Fact duels fiction in the heavy Persian Gulf air, and sunstruck observers attempt to sort it out.

Facts:

Iran sent a high-ranking mullah to buck up its team before a match against arch-rival Iraq. Also offered: an all-expenses-paid pilgrimage to Mecca for a victory. Alas, Iraq won 2-1.

North Korea won’t publicize or televise any games. Plans hinged on gaining one of the two available World Cup berths – but North Korea was eliminated Monday. Fans in Pyongyang apparently won’t know what they missed.

Many supporters of Saudi Arabia are living in a tent city on the Qatar border, arriving on fleets of buses two hours before each match and leaving two hours after.

Japan has offered as much as $95,000 per player if it qualifies for the ’94 World Cup finals in the USA – plus $6,500 for each zone victory.

Two of the six coaches were fired during the tournament.

Fiction:

All the Iraqi players will be clapped in jail by strongman Saddam Hussein if they fail to qualify.

In preparation for this six-nation, 13-day event, 60 Qatari security personnel received special German training in anti-terrorist techniques.

Bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors await every fan entering Khalifa Stadium for the matches.

Mix in native exotica such as ululating Saudi fans, Koreans with wooden clappers, Japanese supporters wearing rising-sun headbands and half the stadium emptying at halftime for evening prayers, and one begins to appreciate the wild diversity that is Asian soccer.

“We are happy football again has shown how it can transcend all political and cultural differences,” said Viacheslav Koloskov of Russia, vice president of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body.

Indeed, it seems soccer is the only common denominator in a region that stretches from Lebanon to Japan and encompasses nearly two-thirds of the planet’s population.

This tournament is of more than passing interest in the USA, which is host to the 1994 World Cup.

Two teams from this tournament will come to the USA. It is safe to assume World Cup USA officials would prefer visits by trading partners Japan and South Korea, or Mideast ally Saudi Arabia, than by hard-line communist North Korea, theocratic Iran or international pariah Iraq.

Iraq’s government has made embarrassing the USA something of a national crusade, exhorting its team to “come back to Iraq with visas of Uncle Sam’s country.”

After a first-game loss to South Korea, coach Adnan Dirjal was fired by Odai Hussein, son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and replaced by Ammu Baba, who has led the Iraqis to a victory and two ties to keep World Cup hopes alive.

Saudi Arabia Monday sacked its Brazilian coach, Jose Candido, after a 1-1 tie Sunday with Iraq. He was replaced by Saudi coach Mohammad al-Kharrash for Thursday’s final game against Iran.

Among the numerous subplots are blood feuds among several competing countries.

The Mideast trio of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are bitter enemies.

“If you picked three countries in the world that absolutely hate each other, you couldn’t do much better than those three,” said Mary Morris, associate director of the Rand Corp.’s Greater Mideast Study Center.

The Koreas were on opposite sides of the bloody Korean War, and both hold grudges against Japan, which occupied the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45.

Yet the matches – despite the Mother of Soccer Battles hype prior to Iraq-Iran and Saudi Arabia-Iraq – produced no problems. Good sportsmanship has been the underlying theme. The biggest controversies have stemmed from unruly behavior by Saudi fans after their games. Other than that, nothing untoward has happened on the field.

Only the Asian zone has a centralized tournament to choose World Cup qualifiers.

In part, it is for convenience and a level playing field.

Qatar has cordial relations with every country in the area, and its small size and inaccessibility recommended it as a nearly antiseptic neutral site.

“One of the reasons we picked Qatar was that we wanted to keep politics from coming ashore on the beach,” said Peter Velappan, a Malaysian who is general secretary of the Asian Football Confederation.

Koloskov conceded excitement is lost when the event is at such a location; matches not involving neighboring Saudi Arabia have been poorly attended.

Japan and South Korea have been followed by a few thousand fans, North Korea by almost none. Iraq and Iran supporters are limited to expatriates living in this thinly populated oil-rich emirate; Qatar declined to issue visas to fans from those countries.

Sports-mad Qatar has staged a well-run event with traditional Arab hospitality. White-robed, keffiyah-clad Qataris run English-language news conferences, provide transportation for foreigners and dispense thick Turkish coffee to anyone who can swallow it.

One criticism Westerners might make is the for-men-only feel of the event. Qatar is devoutly Muslim, and women are discouraged from attending matches. A recent crowd of 30,000 included perhaps 1,000 women, nearly all visitors from Japan and South Korea.

Qataris seemed surprised when joyous Saudi fans stormed the playing field by the thousands after a last-second tie with South Korea. Tighter security was quickly imposed. “Unlike Europe, violence is not common in Asian soccer,” Velappan said.

The level of soccer perhaps has been the biggest disappointment.

With five games left, no team has stood out. Each has looked almost amateurish at times, damaging the Asian zone’s call for a third World Cup berth by 1998.

Said Koloskov: “The standard of play is lagging behind the rest of the world. But progress is being made.”