For seventy-nine minutes on Saturday, that history looked set to continue.
Qatar had chances early. Edmilson Junior robbed Manuel Akanji of possession inside the first two minutes and raced through alone, only to shoot straight at Gregor Kobel. That miss carried real weight in hindsight, worth 0.31 expected goals by itself, more than Qatar’s entire output across the rest of the match outside Khoukhi’s header. Embolo’s penalty arrived in the 17th minute, after Abunada brought down Freuler following a lengthy VAR check, and from there Switzerland controlled the contest almost completely. By full time they had piled up 3.20 expected goals to Qatar’s 0.60. Twenty-two shots to six.
Make no mistake, this was not a backs-to-the-wall smash-and-grab from Qatar. It was one moment, manufactured from almost nothing, against a team that had spent ninety minutes proving it deserved far more.
Khoukhi barely touched the ball in dangerous areas all night. His underlying numbers before the equalizer were modest, a handful of duels won, a couple of defensive interventions, nothing that suggested a match-defining contribution was coming. Then Ahmed found the pocket of space down the left that Switzerland had guarded all evening, the one moment their concentration finally slipped, and delivered a cross with the kind of time that rarely exists in the closing seconds of a World Cup group match. Khoukhi did the rest. He lost Muheim, who had been on the pitch for all of four minutes, and thundered the header into the top right corner.
Three years on from a winless World Cup at home, Qatar’s captain has now scored or at least forced in off a defender the goal that gives his country its first-ever point on this stage.
The celebrations on the Qatar bench afterward told their own story. Julen Lopetegui’s players mobbed Khoukhi near the corner flag, the kind of scene that does not happen for routine equalizers in dead group games. This was not routine. Three points slipped away from Switzerland’s grasp in the time it takes to take a corner, and Murat Yakin cut a frustrated figure on the touchline watching it happen.
Switzerland will look at the numbers and feel hard done by, and they would not be wrong to. But football does not award points for expected goals, and Qatar’s captain understood the moment well enough to make sure his team’s name finally appears in the record books for something other than a winless return.
He cannot manufacture that chance again next time out. For one night in Santa Clara, he did not need to.