{"id":11794,"date":"2011-01-07T19:40:04","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T03:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/07\/cup-kicks-off-in-a-blaze-of-glory\/"},"modified":"2011-01-07T19:40:04","modified_gmt":"2011-01-08T03:40:04","slug":"cup-kicks-off-in-a-blaze-of-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/07\/cup-kicks-off-in-a-blaze-of-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Cup kicks off in a blaze of glory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"ac2011_logo_300x200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/ac2011_logo_300x200.jpg\" height=\"200\" width=\"300\" \/>AFC &#8211; DOHA, <strong>The 15th edition of the continent\u2019s premier tournament got underway in  Qatar on Friday with an awe-inspiring opening ceremony at the Khalifa  Stadium that put on exclamation mark on the organisers vow that the AFC  Asian Cup Qatar 2011\u2122 would be the \u201cbest ever\u201d. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The stadium lights dimmed but the darkness was only momentary as  first hundreds of camera flashes from the packed to capacity terraces  and then some light fireworks signalled the start of the ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>In  a first for a sporting event in Qatar, the crowd were invited to sing  the country\u2019s national anthem which the announcer proposed as a \u201cvery  special gift for His Royal Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.<\/p>\n<p>And  as the Emir entered, the spectators responded with an enthusiastic  rendition of As Salam al Amiri before the spotlight shone on an elderly  gentleman and child who addressed the Qatari ruler, praising him for his  efforts in developing the nation.<\/p>\n<p>It was a surprisingly low key  and humble start to the opening ceremony of a major sporting event and  was to give no hint of what was to come as a stunning laser light show  that was more sci-fi than soccer followed.<\/p>\n<p>With what appeared to  be a light sabre borrowed from the Star Wars movies a light pitch was  created, onto which the flags of the 16 competing nations were projected  and while the biggest cheer was reserved for the introduction of hosts  Qatar, a sizeable contingent from the Indian expat community made sure  that the presence of the Bhangra Boys was felt.<\/p>\n<p>A hypnotic laser  and light display followed on the pitch while Doha\u2019s sky was illuminated  with a variety of phosphorescent hues as the ceremony ended with a  crescendo of pyrotechnics.<\/p>\n<p>After a ceremony like that\u2026.the pressure is now on the players to put on a show of their own!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; DOHA, The 15th edition of the continent\u2019s premier tournament got underway in Qatar&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":2639,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}